EXHIBITIONS
EXHIBITIONS
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The Davies Sisters
Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, two sisters from mid-Wales, amassed one of the great British art collections of the 20th century. Together, they bequeathed 260 works to the National Museum Wales between 1951 and 1963, completely transforming its art collection in character, quality and range.
The sisters were part of a family that brought together the wealth created by Wales’ rapid industrialization and the religious enthusiasm of the Welsh Presbyterianism. Their grandfather, David Davies, was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 19th century. The fortune he made enabled them to become passionate collectors of art. The Davies sisters were among the fist people in Britain to collect French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.
The sisters initially bought paintings by J.W.M. Turner, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet. Their advisors, Hugh Bleaker and John Witcombe, encouraged them to buy works of Eugène Carrière, Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin. By 1924, they had the largest collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in Britain. Gwendoline said “The great love of collecting us to do it yourself—with expert opinion granted, but one does like to choose for oneself.”
One motivation in their collecting was to improve the well being of their countrymen through visual arts and music and through the discussion of social problems. The sisters’ idealism and generosity had a major impact on the cultural life of Wales that still exists today.
They were major benefactors of charities and cultural institutions in Wales. In 1920, they bought Gregynog Hall in Montgomeryshire, which became a center of artistic creativity. They founded Gregynog Music Festival, still occurring every June in Wales and established The Gregynog Press that produced limited edition books of rare beauty with fine hand-colored illustrations, typography and engraving all bound by hand.
The sisters were social philanthropists and contributed to many educational and social causes. They ran canteens for French troops during World War I, and in World War II, they allowed Gregynog to become a convalescent home.
Gwendoline died in 1952 and in 1960, Margaret made a gift of Gregynog and its contents to the University of Wales, which is has it used ever since as a conference center.
Today, the Davies Collection—including Renoir’s famous La Parisienne, three Monet Water Lilies and Van Gogh’s Rain-Auvers, still contains many of the greatest treasures of the National Museum in Cardiff.
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