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The Welsh Women’s Peace Petition

A hundred-year-old Peace Petition signed by nearly 400,000 Welsh women has arrived back in Wales from the United States for the first time in a century, and to its new home at the National Library of Wales.

In 1923, after the horrific losses of the First World War, Welsh women organised a remarkable campaign for peace. 390,296 women signed the petition appealing to American women to call on the US government to join the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, thereby realising the hope of international peace. The Petition was presented to American women in New York in the spring of 1924 and the papers and chest in which they were carried were preserved at the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian, in Washington DC.

Since 2019, the 'Claiming Peace' Partnership Committee worked with the National Library of Wales to borrow the chest and some of the Petition papers as part of a programme of activities to celebrate the centenary. Subsequent discussions with the Smithsonian resulted in the chest being transferred to the National Library.

Representatives from Academi Heddwch Cymru, Heddwch Nain/Mam-gu Cymru and the United States, Welsh Government, the National Library of Wales and representatives from Aberystwyth University came to the National Library and joined online to welcome the Petition on its arrival, and were addressed by Deputy Minister Dawn Bowden.

The Petition and chest will be a prominent feature in the centenary celebrations during 2023-24, and will be digitised by specialist teams at the Library. This will ensure that people across Wales and beyond can discover their history and browse the Petition on the web. A national campaign will be launched to transcribe all Petition signatures to enable the public to search it and to find out exactly who these Welsh women were who went in search of peace. The Petition papers, the oak chest in which the Petition was transported to the United States, and items from the personal archive of campaign leader Annie Hughes Griffiths will also be on display at the Library in Aberystwyth until February 2023.

Degas comes to Haverfordwest

An ambitious exhibition was opened at Oriel Glan-yr-afon, Haverfordwest, in May 2022 under the title The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour: Trem | GazTHE NATIONAL GALLERY MASTERPIECE TOUR: TREM | GAZE. The centerpiece was the exquisite portrait of Hélène Rouart in her Father’s Study by Edgar Degas, and also included a number of portraits from the National Welsh Portrait Collection held in the National Library of Wales. The exhibition was officially opened by Ashok Ahir, President of The National Library of Wales and Jane Knowles, Head of Exhibitions at The National Gallery. The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour is sponsored by Christie’s.

The intention of the exhibition was to place the well-known painting in its context by examining the female form in other works of art and analysing the theory of the 'male gaze' in portraits through the eyes of female and male artists, such as Seren Morgan Jones and Sir Kyffin Williams.

The exhibition aims to contextualise Degas’ painting through an exploration of the female form in art, considering the ‘male gaze’ theory, through the eyes of both female and male Welsh artists such as Seren Morgan Jones and Sir Kyffin Williams.

The Riverside centre also hosted an excellent talk by Laura Llewellyn, Associate Curator at the National Gallery who gave the audience a vivid and intriguing history of the painting, the subject of the portrait and the artist himself.

The Riverside is a flagship cultural centre in the heart of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, which includes a national government indemnity gallery space which showcases collections from The National Library of Wales. Opened in December 2018, this high quality and pioneering facility and is already playing a central part in regenerating the town and wider area of Pembrokeshire.