Wales has never seen sisters quite so devoted to the arts as the Davies girls. Born two years apart in the 1880s, Margaret and Gwendoline Davies became two of the richest women in Britain when, at 25, they inherited a fortune from the railways, coal mines, docks and bridges built by their grandfather.
The exhibition, Industry to Impressionism, at the National Museum Wales (NMW), and accompanying book, celebrate not just the collection the two women amassed and ultimately bequeathed to the Welsh nation, but also aim to shed light on why these Calvinist Methodist teetotallers bought the Monets, Renoirs and Rodins that they did. Not to mention the Corots, Cézannes and Turners, setting up a music festival and a fine-printing press, and generally doing good throughout their long, unmarried lives.
After the obligatory video, which turns out to be a 1970s documentary originally made for television rather than a proper introduction, the exhibition starts in earnest in a gallery devoted largely to grandfather Davies. An extraordinary man, he was born in a farmhouse and died a multimillionaire, owning half the Rhondda Valley and the Ocean Coal Company, which supplied the ships of the Navy and the P&O line.
When the tsar of Russia decided that he wanted a railway to reach Siberia, he turned to Davies for advice. But the space devoted to their grandfather, with exhibits including a gilded shovel and wheelbarrow from the opening of Barry Docks, means that it takes a while for the sisters and, more importantly, their art collection to come into view.
And what a collection it is. There is far more to it than Monet's Waterlilies, which predictably feature prominently on the banners and posters advertising the show. The exhibition demonstrates that Impressionism was an acquired taste. The sisters preferred at first to buy work by Corot, Turners, a Romney portrait and another by Raeburn.
The exhibition leaves it up to the visitor to imagine what some people thought back home about them spending anything up to £6,000 for a painting and their regular jaunts to Italy, France and Germany, travelling in a Daimler. You can almost hear the tut-tutting echoing down the valleys, especially when they brought back The Kiss by Rodin.
Beginnings
At first they consulted Hugh Blaker, the curator of the Holburne Gallery in Bath, and the brother of their former governess. Thankfully, they did not continue to rely on Blaker's advice, which seems less than reliable. A Constable landscape turned out to be by George, not John, while a Botticelli and El Greco were from the schools associated with the respective artists, rather than by the men themselves.
But Blaker was instrumental in getting the sisters to share their collection with the public in an exhibition held at Cardiff City Hall in 1913, which they funded in full and anonymously.
A black-and-white photograph of the temporary exhibition shows a room lined with fabric and closely hung with their paintings, and with the erotic Rodin sculpture as a centrepiece. While not as closely hung, Industry to Impressionism manages to look and feel rather more cluttered than its Edwardian antecedent thanks to the number of graphic panels and videos.
It is not just the screens and showcases of ephemera among the paintings, but the way that often the best works are hung rather awkwardly in a corner - Rouen Cathedral by Monet and La Parisienne by Renoir suffering in particular.
Perhaps this is a hint that the sisters had an idiosyncratic eye for displaying their art at Gregynog Hall, a thumping great Tudorbethan pile in mid-Wales, which they turned into an arts and crafts centre in the 1920s.
Behind the lines
The first world war was both traumatic and liberating for the spinsters. They served with distinction in the Red Cross in France, not far behind the lines.
It seems that for the first time they earned respect for what they did - serving tea and buns to French troops - rather than for their wealth. While passing through Paris during the war, Margaret bought some of the greatest works in the collection, including two landscapes by Cézanne.
But for Gwendoline, buying art was becoming problematic. Although an early supporter of Augustus John, she turned down an offer to buy more of the Welsh painter's works in 1921, "in the face of appalling need everywhere". Her ambivalence must have grown with the General Strike, which started in the coal mines that she part-owned.
The exhibition gives a good idea of the many different ways the sisters tried to do good, which ranged from holding discussion groups about social problems at Gregynog Hall to funding all manner of arts and crafts projects.
As the focus of the exhibition moves away from the fine to the applied arts, and to music, the hang itself gets more cluttered and confusing. On the final walls are post-1945 works, only some of which were bought by Margaret. The others are there to show that the national museum continued to grow after the Davies bequests in the 1950s and 1960s, although never as spectacularly.
From the late 1930s, Margaret was buying modern British works at a fraction of the cost of an Impressionist painting. She clearly had the intention of forming a collection fit for the nation, part of which was meant to continually travel, just as the sisters did.
Hymns and rehangs
In its centenary year - Industry to Impressionism forms part of the celebration - the NMW is busy modernising. So leaving the exhibition with its soundtrack of Methodist hymns, visitors hear the distant sound of workmen hammering MDF in galleries closed for refurbishment. When the Davies sisters' paintings are rehung on their walls, hopefully some of the context, without the clutter, will be retained.
Javier Pes is the editor of Museum Practice
Project data
Cost: £100,000
Funders: Gwendoline and Margaret Davies charities, NMW
Curator: Oliver Fairclough
Exhibition ends: 6 January 2008
The exhibition, Industry to Impressionism, at the National Museum Wales (NMW), and accompanying book, celebrate not just the collection the two women amassed and ultimately bequeathed to the Welsh nation, but also aim to shed light on why these Calvinist Methodist teetotallers bought the Monets, Renoirs and Rodins that they did. Not to mention the Corots, Cézannes and Turners, setting up a music festival and a fine-printing press, and generally doing good throughout their long, unmarried lives.
After the obligatory video, which turns out to be a 1970s documentary originally made for television rather than a proper introduction, the exhibition starts in earnest in a gallery devoted largely to grandfather Davies. An extraordinary man, he was born in a farmhouse and died a multimillionaire, owning half the Rhondda Valley and the Ocean Coal Company, which supplied the ships of the Navy and the P&O line.
When the tsar of Russia decided that he wanted a railway to reach Siberia, he turned to Davies for advice. But the space devoted to their grandfather, with exhibits including a gilded shovel and wheelbarrow from the opening of Barry Docks, means that it takes a while for the sisters and, more importantly, their art collection to come into view.
And what a collection it is. There is far more to it than Monet's Waterlilies, which predictably feature prominently on the banners and posters advertising the show. The exhibition demonstrates that Impressionism was an acquired taste. The sisters preferred at first to buy work by Corot, Turners, a Romney portrait and another by Raeburn.
The exhibition leaves it up to the visitor to imagine what some people thought back home about them spending anything up to £6,000 for a painting and their regular jaunts to Italy, France and Germany, travelling in a Daimler. You can almost hear the tut-tutting echoing down the valleys, especially when they brought back The Kiss by Rodin.
Beginnings
At first they consulted Hugh Blaker, the curator of the Holburne Gallery in Bath, and the brother of their former governess. Thankfully, they did not continue to rely on Blaker's advice, which seems less than reliable. A Constable landscape turned out to be by George, not John, while a Botticelli and El Greco were from the schools associated with the respective artists, rather than by the men themselves.
But Blaker was instrumental in getting the sisters to share their collection with the public in an exhibition held at Cardiff City Hall in 1913, which they funded in full and anonymously.
A black-and-white photograph of the temporary exhibition shows a room lined with fabric and closely hung with their paintings, and with the erotic Rodin sculpture as a centrepiece. While not as closely hung, Industry to Impressionism manages to look and feel rather more cluttered than its Edwardian antecedent thanks to the number of graphic panels and videos.
It is not just the screens and showcases of ephemera among the paintings, but the way that often the best works are hung rather awkwardly in a corner - Rouen Cathedral by Monet and La Parisienne by Renoir suffering in particular.
Perhaps this is a hint that the sisters had an idiosyncratic eye for displaying their art at Gregynog Hall, a thumping great Tudorbethan pile in mid-Wales, which they turned into an arts and crafts centre in the 1920s.
Behind the lines
The first world war was both traumatic and liberating for the spinsters. They served with distinction in the Red Cross in France, not far behind the lines.
It seems that for the first time they earned respect for what they did - serving tea and buns to French troops - rather than for their wealth. While passing through Paris during the war, Margaret bought some of the greatest works in the collection, including two landscapes by Cézanne.
But for Gwendoline, buying art was becoming problematic. Although an early supporter of Augustus John, she turned down an offer to buy more of the Welsh painter's works in 1921, "in the face of appalling need everywhere". Her ambivalence must have grown with the General Strike, which started in the coal mines that she part-owned.
The exhibition gives a good idea of the many different ways the sisters tried to do good, which ranged from holding discussion groups about social problems at Gregynog Hall to funding all manner of arts and crafts projects.
As the focus of the exhibition moves away from the fine to the applied arts, and to music, the hang itself gets more cluttered and confusing. On the final walls are post-1945 works, only some of which were bought by Margaret. The others are there to show that the national museum continued to grow after the Davies bequests in the 1950s and 1960s, although never as spectacularly.
From the late 1930s, Margaret was buying modern British works at a fraction of the cost of an Impressionist painting. She clearly had the intention of forming a collection fit for the nation, part of which was meant to continually travel, just as the sisters did.
Hymns and rehangs
In its centenary year - Industry to Impressionism forms part of the celebration - the NMW is busy modernising. So leaving the exhibition with its soundtrack of Methodist hymns, visitors hear the distant sound of workmen hammering MDF in galleries closed for refurbishment. When the Davies sisters' paintings are rehung on their walls, hopefully some of the context, without the clutter, will be retained.
Javier Pes is the editor of Museum Practice
Project data
Cost: £100,000
Funders: Gwendoline and Margaret Davies charities, NMW
Curator: Oliver Fairclough
Exhibition ends: 6 January 2008
