Peter Lord: John Lewis a Sir Gâr

Posted on March 19, 2018 Updated on March 21, 2018

Saturday 28th 17:00 Horeb Chapel: Peter Lord: John Lewis a Sir Gâr

Book Ticket: £10

Session in Welsh / Sesiwn yn Gymraeg

Peter Lord yw prif hanesydd celf Cymru ac mae wedi cyhoeddi a darlledu’n helaeth ar ddiwylliant gweledol Cymru yn Gymraeg a Saesneg.

John Lewis oedd yr arlunydd cyntaf i gynnal bywoliaeth yng Nghymru ei hun. Roedd rhai o’i noddwyr cynnar yn y 1730au a 40au yn byw yn Sir Gâr a’r siroedd cyfagos. Roeddent yn ffyddlon iddo hyd at y 1760au pan roedd yn peintio tirluniau yn bennaf.

Treuliodd Lewis ran bwysig o’i yrfa yn Nulyn yn peintio portreadau a setiau theatr. Roedd yn un o gydnabod y dramodydd Thomas Sheridan.

Mae’r portread hyfryd o Elizabeth Gwynne o Daliaris, Llandeilo yn chwe blwydd oed yn un o’i bortreadau Cymreig cynharaf. Mae Peter Lord yn trafod gyrfa John Lewis a’i gysylltiad gyda Sir Gaerfyrddin.

Graddiodd Peter Lord yn y Celfyddydau Cain ym Mhrifysgol Reading yn 1970. Roedd yn gymrawd gwadd yng nghanolfan Celf Brydeinig yn Yale yn 1994, wedyn yn ymchwilydd yng nghanolfan Astudiaethau Cymreig a Cheltaidd Uwch o 1996-2003 ac, yn fwy diweddar, yn CREW, Prifysgol Abertawe.  Rhwng 1998 a 2003 cyhoeddodd dair cyfrol o ‘The Visual Culture of Wales’, sy’n cael eu hystyried y gwaith mwyaf awdurdodol ar y pwnc. Yn 2009 cyhoeddodd ‘The Meaning of Pictures: Images of Personal, Social and Political Identity’ ac yn 2013 hunangofiant, ‘Relationships with Pictures’. Cyhoeddwyd ei lyfr diweddaraf, The Tradition: a New History of Welsh Art 1400-1990, gan Parthian yn 2016.  Yn 2017 enillodd wobr Llyfr Ffeithiol y Flwyddyn yng Nghymru.

The Portrait of Elizabeth Gwynne of Taliaris –  John Lewis and the Carmarthenshire Connection

Peter Lord is Wales’ foremost art historian and has published and broadcast extensively on the visual culture of Wales in both Welsh and English.

John Lewis was the earliest painter to sustain a practice substantially in Wales itself. Many of his early patrons, for whom he painted portraits in the 1730s and 40s,  lived in Carmarthenshire and neighbouring counties. He retained their loyalty into the 1760s, by which time he was painting mainly landscapes.

Lewis also spent an important part of his career in Dublin, where he moved in the circle of the playwright Thomas Sheidan, painting portraits and theatre scenery.

The lovely portrait of Elizabeth Gwynne of Taliaris, Llandeilo, painted when she was about six year old, may be the earliest of his Welsh portraits. Taking this picture as a starting point, Peter Lord explores the career of John Lewis, and the Camarthenshire connection.

Peter Lord took a degree in Fine Art at Reading University in 1970. He was a visiting fellow at the Yale Center for British Art in 1994, then research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies from 1996-2003 and, more recently, at CREW, Swansea University. He has published and broadcast extensively on the visual culture of Wales in both Welsh and English languages, and curated major exhibitions for national institutions. Between 1998 and 2003 he published the three volumes of The Visual Culture of Wales, which is regarded as the authoritative text on the subject. In 2009 he published The Meaning of Pictures: Images of Personal, Social and Political Identity and in 2013 an autobiography, Relationships with Pictures. His latest book, The Tradition: a New History of Welsh Art 1400-1990, was published by Parthian in 2016.  In 2017 it was Wales Non-fiction Book of the Year.

Peter Lord is particularly interested in the work of the Welsh artisan painters of the first half of the nineteenth century, and in the art of the Great Depression, between the two world wars. In a wider context he has written extensively on the theoretical issues that concern the history of art in nations regarded as marginal to the mainstream tradition.