Tony Goble; One of Wales's best loved artists
Hyfler/Rosner
One of Wales's best loved artists, he dedicated himself to
the local community
Peter Wakelin
Friday April 27, 2007
Guardian
his work:
http://www.welshartsarchive.org.uk/galleries/tony_goble.htm
Tony Goble, who has died aged 63, arrived at Llanover Hall
arts centre in Cardiff for a one-year artist's residency in
1979. He never left. During the next 28 years he became a
much-loved educator and one of the most admired artists in
Wales.
Goble's work was utterly individual, yet it belonged to an
artistic family that runs from European folk painting
through William Blake and Marc Chagall to Cecil Collins, Ken
Kiff and others. He might be termed a magical realist: his
subjects were his own life and everyday surroundings
transformed by free association into other-worldly
narratives. He plucked imagery from many sources, capturing
birds, boats, medieval sculptures and Coptic icons to place
alongside his own pictorial persona. His vitality of form
and vividness of colour were seductive, and his worlds were
persuasive, yet his mysterious images remained richly open
to interpretation. He was admired especially by poets:
Sheenagh Pugh, Paul Henry and Malcolm Parr were among those
who responded to his works in words.
While his paintings were autobiographical, his life was
itself an artistic creation. Goble became an archetype, with
bird's-nest beard, long hair, large hats and bicycle. He
frequently made the ordinary extraordinary, as when he
invited friends to celebrate his new garden shed,
commissioning a composer and a poetry reading, and calling
in a priest to give a blessing.
He was born in Drenewydd, as he called it, in Welsh, rather
than the mundane Newtown. His father lived a life of leisure
on a private income, owning several Lagonda cars, but died
before Tony was a year old. His mother took his two older
sisters to set up home near Llandudno and left the baby with
a district nurse, Mary Jones, and her husband.
Goble remained with the childless couple, speaking only
Welsh, for three years before his mother sent for him.
"Auntie Mary" encouraged his early drawing, carefully
keeping everything he did, and he returned to her for his
school holidays. "I grew up with a taste for two tongues,"
he wrote later, "and a sense that things were not always
what they appear to be."
He passed his school time unhappily and without distinction
at St Mary's College in Rhos-on-Sea, propelling him to the
merchant navy at 15. His experiences during the next two
years fed his personal mythology much more excitingly: in
one story the boy steered a ship around the Needles while
captain and crew slumbered blind drunk below.
Goble then took a one-year diploma at Wrexham College of
Art. In 1963, he resolved to hitch to London in search of
adventure, but he only got as far as Cardiff, where he met a
local girl he liked the look of, Janice Morgan. The
21-year-olds were married shortly afterwards, and an
inheritance from his father on coming of age bought them a
house at Llanfairfechan.
Goble supported their growing family as a sea-lion trainer,
pig farmer and jobbing builder, but painting was his central
activity, and he was elected a Royal Cambrian Academician at
the atypically youthful age of 34.
When the Llanover Hall residency brought him back to
Cardiff, the Victorian villa in the inner suburbs was
already a friendly community arts centre and Goble's talents
to engage found their perfect home. The centre supported
children, professional artists' groups, students getting
portfolios together for college, and amateurs attending
summer schools and evening classes. He wrote, "Llanover has
always had an open-door policy, opening the door to all who
want to make art."
Generally, artists are selfish of their time, evading
responsibilities as they would crocodiles in a swamp, but
Goble gave back to the community who supported him. When
Llanover Hall was identified for closure, he spearheaded the
successful campaign to save it. His individualism, warmth
and gentlemanliness allowed him to speak out where others
did not dare: in 1998 he became chairman of the Welsh Group
of artists and at the opening of its 50th anniversary
exhibition at the National Museum of Wales called
passionately for a national gallery of contemporary art. His
plea was not then well received by the authorities but is
now official policy.
Goble's work is in the collections of the National Museum of
Wales, Leeds Museum, Swansea's Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and
the Contemporary Art Society for Wales, among others. A
major exhibition, Dream-Seeds, was held at the Glynn Vivian
in 1995, and he showed regularly with the Welsh Group and at
the Royal Cambrian Academy, the National Eisteddfod and the
Royal Academy in London. In 2004, a retrospective at
Llanover Hall - 25 Years in Residence - spilled from the
gallery into almost every room. Friends produced, alongside
the exhibition catalogue, a booklet of unselfconscious
tributes to Goble's inspiration, kindness and support.
He is survived by Janice, their children, Dorian, Brienne,
Lucian and Frances, and four grandchildren.
· Anthony Barton Goble, artist and teacher, born October 20
1943; died April 13 2007