The Welsh Arts Archive is an ongoing project by photographer Bernard Mitchell and daughter Beth Mitchell to record a comprehensive list of notable characters within the Arts community in Wales. The archive is based at the Richard Burton Archives within the library on the Singleton Campus.
The Archive contains an alphabetical list of names followed by the occupation (or discipline) and the unique photographic reference for the artist featured. To obtain further information, and an image of the artist, simply click on the name. Not all of the pictures are loaded here yet, please be patient. This is a major project, which is constantly expanding, and will perhaps never actually be completed (due to its very nature). If you would like a high-resolution copy of any of the images please contact me.
In the past, the documentation of the artists of Wales has been sadly neglected. This group of portraits is part of a much larger collection of photographs of the artists of Wales. The Welsh Arts Archive began in 1966 with a series of portraits of the Swansea friends of Dylan Thomas, including the artists Ceri Richards and Alfred Janes, the poet Vernon Watkins and the composer Daniel Jones
Since 1990 I have added many artists who have since passed away, including, Will Roberts, Josef Herman, John Petts, Ivor Roberts Jones, John Elwyn, David Tinker and Ernest Zobole. The work continues with the artists working today.
In 1999, a large exhibition of photographs of artists was held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Photographs are also held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London, The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff and the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea.
The book Pieces of a Jigsaw published in 2017 by Parthian Books and Swansea University, gives a extract of 120 photographs from my archive of over 800 artists and writers.
Bernard Mitchell