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Most books reviewed are in print, and are for sale from Artcymru.co.uk . But some are out of print, for this I make no excuses, for they are all important to the history of the art and artists of Wales. So, get down your local library and make a nuisance of yourself there, or you could email my friend Jeff Towns, at Dylan's Bookstore in Swansea, who is the expert in all things second-hand in Welsh books. Tell him I sent you, then he will owe me a pint. jefftowns@dylans.com

Joseph Herman
RELATED TWILIGHTS
Notes from an artists diary
Edited by Tony Curtis

The distinguished painter Josef Herman left his native Warsaw shortly before the war. He lived and worked in many places since, and his friends numbered many well-known artists. In Related Twilights the same qualities of seriousness of purpose and profound humanity which permeate his paintings lend eloquence to his word-pictures of the people, places and events that shaped his life and art. The first part of the book is a vivid evocation of his childhood and adolescence in the now-vanished, colourful Yiddish-speaking quarter of Warsaw, and of his fruitful years in Scotland, London and Wales - where some of his best-known work was done. The second part consists of lively reminiscences of those places, visited or lived in, that enriched Herman's instinct for draughtsman-ship and nourished his artistic imagination: Burgundy, Andalusia, Israel, Amsterdam, New York, Mexico. Both parts are illustrated with Herman's drawings, many of which have never before been seen.

Josef Herman:
The Early Years in Scotland and Wales
Moelwyn Merchant
l36pp. £6.95
Christopher Davies

'The notion that art needs perpetually changing was catastrophic. Art needs time to settle, to ripen.'
Josef Herman, the painter, wrote this in an open letter to the magazine Tract a few years ago. He was referring to the crises in the Visual Arts that he had seen since the Second World War. Also, when he said 'Art needs time to settle, to ripen', he was speaking as a
mature artist, having experienced deeply felt emotions and a vision of real significance, of 'man's lasting spirituality'.
The book entitled Josef Herman brings together some of the main experiences that were to play a crucial role in this painter's maturing art. It contains a collection of drawings, half of them done during his stay in Scotland, which reflect his experiences, his memory of tragic human suffering during the war in his homeland, in Poland, which, ironically, influenced his later vision of man's human bondage, and his spirituality. It was as a result of the German invasion that Herman moved to Glasgow. This is one example which reveals how Josef Herman felt about the mood of the Glasgow drawings.
'I was drawn to depict all I could remember [life in Warsaw] as faithfully as a chronicler, though always in colours and scenes that also expressed my own nostalgia for a vanishing past and a deep sense of sympathy for the millions of Jews who had remained in Eastern Europe and who were being systematically starved, humiliated and extinguished.'

Later we experience a new atmosphere in the drawings, 'a dream like tranquility' which he perceived in Skye and the Western Isles. But what is significant in these drawings is the transformation that is taking place in Herman's insight, his growing awareness of a deep 'human bondage', a human dignity which he felt to be part of the toil in the life of the fishermen and later in the life of the miners in South Wales-or as Moelwyn Merchant puts it:'As his recollection of the squalor and tragedy of Warsaw had been transfigured by the nostalgic reverie, so the toil of the fishermen, seen as an element in the tale of human bondage is transfigured by the radiance of Highlands light.'
In this book we are guided as though on a deep experiential journey (with Josef Herman) by means of atmospheric drawings and by means of an introduction by Moelwyn
Merchant: a careful sensitive selection and observation of Herman's drawings and words.
Finally, we encounter Herman living in Wales, we experience drawings that reveal not only the human bondage of the miners but also a marked monumental spiritual presence in his vision of them. This last example of Herman's sensitive prose should not only reveal this developed visionary awareness but also the deep impression that living in Ystradgynlais made on him. Moelwyn Merchant selects this piece as Herman's finest and most evocative piece of prose:
'There was hardly a soul to be seen. In the distance low hills like sleeping dogs and above the hills a copper-coloured sky how often I later returned to the colour and mood of that sky! ... Under the bridge out of a cool shadow trickled a pool of water ... Then, unexpectedly, as though from nowhere, a group of miners stepped onto the bridge. For a split second their heads appeared against the full body of the sun, as against a yellow disc-
whole image was not unlike an icon depicting the saints with their haloes. With the light around them, the silhouettes of the miners were almost black ... The magnificence of this scene overwhelmed me ... It became the source of my work for years to come.'
This book is a valuable reminder of Josef Herman's great contribution to life.

John Meirion Morris

David Tress
by Clare Rendell
With an introduction by John Russell Taylor

It was in the early 1990's that I first discovered the paintings of David Tress at Myles Pepper's West Wales Arts Centre Gallery in Fishguard, and immediately fell in love with his expressive landscapes of the Preselli mountains. Over the last twelve years, I have returned many times to Pembrokeshire to photograph David. He has become a friend and a great supporter of my project, documenting the artists and writers of Wales.
On first impressions David seems a quiet almost introverted character, however like his work, there is underneath a man who knows his own mind, decisive and passionately involved in his painting, which has evolved and matured over the years. Tress is today, one of the great painters of Wales, who like many before him, such as Sutherland and Piper have made Wales their spiritual home, and in so doing richly endowing our cultural heritage.
For all those people who admire his work, this book is an invaluable reference work, covering as it does a resume of his life, so far, with over forty illustrations of both drawings and paintings in colour and black and white. It seems strange to me, that it has taken so long for such a volume to appear. However, it has only recently dawned on some, that we even have such a rich visual cultural heritage. It is good to see that at last we are correcting some of our past mistakes.

96 pages. Soft-cover. £19.95 plus P & P. Total = £22.45

Portraits -
David Griffiths
With an Introduction by Rian Evans

This extensive catalogue has been published to accompany the exhibition at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. The introduction is written by Rian Evans and outlines the life and work of Cardiff based portrait painter David Griffiths, with portraits of the artist by photographer Bernard Mitchell. The book is well illustrated with full page colour reproductions of many of the great and the good from Wales, who have been captured for posterity on canvass by David Griffiths.

88pages. Soft-back. £12.50 plus £2.25 P&P.
Total = £14.75