TENBY --
By Arthur Morgan
Another Triumph for Tenby
'Bright and busy':: On the Edge 11, the winning picture by Arthur Morgan in the 2000
Singer & Friedlander/The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.
The painting is of the South Beach at Tenby.
The painting and many more are currently on display at the Mall Galleries in London.
The exhibition goes on to
Leeds,Manchester, and Birmingham.
Here is what Frank Whitford of the Sunday Times said about the painting. 'Bright and busy': On the Edge II, the winning picture by Arthur Morgan
High-water mark First Prize �15,000
Arthur Morgan
On the Edge II - South Beach Tenby, Pembrokeshire (41in x 28in)
If you're one of those who think the judges can't tell their raw umber from their burnt sienna, you won't be in the least surprised to learn that Arthur Morgan, the winner of this year's first prize, entered an almost identical painting 12 months ago but wasn't even a runner-up. If that picture had actually been
rejected outright, the sceptics might have been justified in blowing raspberries. But it was selected for the exhibition (during which it sold) and, more important, it also reached the short list of likely prizewinners.
It's not difficult to see why the judges thought so highly of Morgan's work this year too. His bright, busy painting stood out because of the startlingly high viewpoint, the lack of any progression from foreground to background and the way the colour is handled. It's difficult to see how Morgan pulled the composition off. So many individual elements, from the innumerable small figures to the shadows and footprints in the
sand, had to be pulled together into a coherent whole. It's the patterns that the people on beaches unwittingly make and keep changing that attracted Morgan to the subject in the first place. "I'm especially fond of high views because they make you feel like a dispassionate observer," he says. "And, of course, it's only from high up that you can clearly see those patterns forming and being transformed. This particular picture, like the one I submitted last year - which was the first time I'd entered the competition, by the way - is from a series I call On the Edge, because it's about types of landscape in which the
elements meet, in this case water and earth. The beach is in Wales, of course, which is where I live."
Morgan admits that, though he never paints in oils, he's "not what you might call a watercolour purist. There may well be some gouache in this painting, for example, I can't remember. I especially like working with egg tempera, a medium even older than oils that involves mixing fresh egg yolk with the pigment.
But it's a water-based medium that enables you to achieve a fine translucency and a delightful surface sheen."
Morgan studied at Cardiff College of Art after service in the RAF, and then taught art and design at a secondary school for almost 35 years. "I really enjoyed it. So much so that I couldn't stay retired. I finally stopped being a supply teacher two years ago. At least that means I can now devote myself full time to
painting."
Delegates to the Tenth Symposium in October can see the South Beach for themselves
