Swansea has been pinpointed on the modern cultural map by Dylan Thomas’s description of it as an ‘ugly lovely town’. Over the last three centuries, artists have recorded every lovely aspect as well as every ugly one, from the views along the glorious Gower coastline and portraits of the great and good to the industrial horrors of the Lower Swansea Valley and the destruction of the Blitz. Artists, photographers, engravers, topographers and architects have paid close attention to Swansea. Collectors have been wise, adventurous and influential in their choices, while Swansea owes a debt of gratitude to the Royal Institution of South Wales and to Richard Glynn Vivian for a museum and an art gallery in which the town’s artistic and cultural heritage has been preserved, researched and displayed. And there is no sign of artistic endeavour slowing down; the tradition is safe in the hands of Valerie Ganz, Christine Jones, etc.

Early Swansea Collection. The works on paper in the collection of the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery were surveyed in 2003-4 in a project funded by the Council of Museums in Wales and led by arts consultant David Alston formerly Keeper of Art at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales.