This special exhibition at Parc Howard Museum celebrates the work of Llanelli artist James Dickson Innes and his time spent in North Wales with the Arenig Group of artists. 

It's a rare opportunity to see some of fine collection of Innes watercolour paintings cared for by CofGâr.

James Dickson Innes is one of the most well-known and talented artists to come out of Llanelli. He is arguably best known for his place within the Arenig Group of artists who wandered the mountains of North Wales between 1910 and 1913, looking for inspiration. Innes was the group’s ringleader, a member of the Camden Town Group who died of tuberculosis in 1914 aged only 27.

The other members of the group were Derwent Lees and Augustus John, both former Slade School students and Camden Town Group members. Lees was an Australian artist who had lost a leg following a riding accident, the impact of which placed him in a psychiatric hospital from 1918 until his death in 1931. Augustus John, was the only one of the three to have a long and successful career, surviving into his 80s and becoming one of the country’s leading portrait painters. 

Innes made his first trip North Wales in 1910, and then returned with John in March 1911 where they rented a cottage in Nant-Ddu. They would then return several times over the next three years, bringing with them The influence of each other is clear in the paintings they produced. In his forward to 1961 exhibition of Innes’ work, Augustus John stated: 

“I think Innes was never happier than when painting in this district. But this happiness was not without a morbid side, for is passionate devotion to the landscape of his choice provided so a way of escape from his consciousness of the malady which already was casting its shadow across his days, ignore it as he might pretend in an effort of sublime but foolish self-deception. This is what hastened his steps across the moors and lent his brush a greater swiftness and decision as he set down in a single sitting, view after jewelled view of the delectable mountains he loved, before darkness came to hide everything except a dim but inextinguishable glow, perceived by him as the reflection of some miraculous promised land… and it must have been this, too, that led him to seek at times in the illusory palliative of the brandy bottle some respite from the sentence under which he knew himself, though secretly, to stand condemned”.