Best in show

“This is a very British selection – a piece by a famous English artist in the collection of a Welsh enthusiast, which is on show in a Scottish gallery.

The collector was Derek Williams, born in Cardiff in 1929 and who spent his professional life in his father’s firm of chartered surveyors.

Williams began collecting modern British art in the late 1950s and was initially attracted to the likes of John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer but the collection also boasts work by Lucian Freud, LS Lowry, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore.

Apparently, he took his house-selling and negotiating skills into the art world and was known to drive really hard bargains when dealing with galleries.

He certainly had a good eye for what was fashionable at the time and concentrated on acquiring domestic-scale works, which he displayed at home and in his practice’s many offices.

A staff member who knew him reports that Williams kept quite a lot of the work he bought in cupboards and drawers. He was quite a humble person and didn’t want to look flashy at all.

He died in 1984 after suffering illnesses all his life and left his fabulous collection to the Derek Williams Trust, which, in turn, lent it on a long-term loan basis to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

The trust also helps with the further acquisition of post-1900 art and a committee meets here in Cardiff twice a year to talk about which works to add while maintaining the character of the original collection.

This piece certainly fits that bill perfectly. It was bought in 2005 and complements a Moore bronze maquette which Williams acquired.

At first glance, it looks quite unassuming piece but it has a real power to it. The story goes, of course, that Moore was travelling home to Hampstead after a wartime dinner with friends and he became caught in a tube station during an air raid.

He came across these people sleeping underground purely by accident but he was very moved by what he witnessed. It’s an important piece, not least because people think of Moore as a sculptor.

This is an accomplished drawing, which has a real feeling of claustrophobia to it. Moore’s use of wax crayon provides detail which makes it rather ghoulish.”

The Derek Williams Trust Collection is at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh until 24 February

Melissa Munro is the Derek Williams curator of modern and contemporary art at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales