The name Derek Mathias Tudor Williams will not be familiar to everybody, but it is this Welshman who has been the greatest benefactor to Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales since Gwendoline and Margaret Davies.
A new exhibition to celebrate Derek Williams’ contribution to art in Wales, Lifetime to Legacy: The Derek Williams Trust Collection will go on show at National Museum Cardiff from Friday 25th March 2011.
Derek Williams (1929-1984) was an important collector of modern British art and the collection he built has been further enhanced with new acquisitions by the Derek Williams Trust. The whole collection is on long-term loan to Amgueddfa Cymru. Established following the collector’s death, the Derek Williams Trust is committed to the care, enhancement and public display of Derek Williams’ collection. In addition the Trust provides generous support in furthering the acquisition of post-1900 works of art at Amgueddfa Cymru and contributes to the acquisition of contemporary ceramics, a more recent development by the Trust.
Melissa Munro, Derek Williams Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales said:
“This wonderful exhibition features highlights from the Derek Williams Trust collection and demonstrates their unique contribution to the visual arts in Wales.”
“The generous support of the Derek Williams Trust has also transformed the Museum’s collection of twentieth century art and parallels the great bequests of French Impressionist art made by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies a generation earlier.”
The Trust is also providing significant support to the refurbishment of National Museum Cardiff’s new contemporary art galleries – the final phase of Wales’s National Museum of Art, which will open in July 2011. Within the new galleries there will be a dedicated space for the Derek Williams Trust collection.
Amgueddfa Cymru is grateful to the Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones for his support of Wales’s National Museum of Art. The Welsh Assembly Government has contributed £3.25 million towards the creation of a national museum of art for Wales.
Mr Jones said: “It is extremely important that Wales has a fitting home to display the wonderful art of Wales, both works from the magnificent National collections and also those on loan through the generosity of benefactors such as the Derek Williams Trust. I am grateful to the Trust for its close co-operation with Amgueddfa Cymru and its generous financial contribution towards the cost of the refurbishment works at the National Museum Cardiff.”
Melissa Munro will be giving a lunchtime talk, Derek Williams: a passion for collecting, on Friday 8 April at 1.05pm.
There will also be a lunchtime talk A Continuing Legacy, The work of the Derek Williams Trust by William Wilkins CBE, (Derek Williams Trustee speaker) on Friday 15 April at 1.05pm.
Entry to the Museum is free, thanks to the support of the Welsh Assembly Government.
