Eugene Fisk Exhibition

 I went up to the Castle yesterday to have a look at the exhibition of Eugene Fisk's paintings and sketches, and was very pleased to discover that it's free.

The blacksmithing exhibition is still going on, too, outside the exhibition room, and several exhibits are different from the ones I saw last time I visited it, so it's worth going again to see the new stuff.

I started by looking at the landscapes.  There are local pictures, like the cover art from his book Oh Happy Hay, and a picture of his house (also the Kilvert Gallery) in Clyro.  There's a whole group of pictures of Italy, mostly architectural, and a series of paintings of places along the route of Gerald of Wales' Journey around Wales in 1188 (he came to Hay at the beginning of this journey, to help drum up enthusiasm for a Crusade).  Eugene was planning to make the pictures into a book, but the work was never completed.

He also did portraits, and several of his pictures of members of the Welsh National Opera are featured - he was commissioned to paint them.  There's also his portrait of King Richard Booth.

Many of the pictures are not for sale - the average price of the ones that are seems to be about £1500.

There were also some of his sketchbooks and diaries laid out on tables (he had beautiful handwriting).

And there was a short video playing in one corner, giving his life story from his time as a member of a teaching order of monks to his life as an artist after he left the order, and his long association with Clyro and Hay.

There's even an opportunity to own one of Eugene's sketches - there are three on offer, as raffle prizes (I wish I had room to put one on my wall!).

Sadly, there was nothing about the work he did with Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees - he sketched many portraits of the refugees at open days, and collected them into a book called Only Connect.

On the way out, I started chatting to the young lady at the desk by the door of the exhibition space.  It turned out that we have a shared love of archaeology, and she is very much looking forward to see the students return to Arthur's Stone in the summer.  We also have a shared love of the City of Norwich, where she went to university, and I spent two years digging up the Castle Mall (six acres in the middle of the city which is now a shopping centre).