Robert Thomas and Welsh Women Icons with Ceri Thomas

Hello Sculpture Vultures! So it’s not often that you meet someone whose childhood memories are interlaced with the making of national monuments, but Ceri Thomas is just that.

We met at the unveiling of the women and child sculpture in Coalville last year, and Ceri was actually the child who is depicted in the monument.

He is also a fascinating character because he’s multi-talented. He’s an art historian and also a very good painter and curator.

I really wanted to interview him earlier, but there’s been lots of fantastic people in the queue, I’m afraid so Ceri has had to wait quite a while, but now is quite an appropriate time to speak to him because we are nearing the centenary of his father, Robert Thomas’ birth. Ceri is doing some really great work to reflect on and amplify his father’s significance to Welsh culture and his legacy.

Robert Thomas was one of Wales’ most significant sculptors. He created public works that have become icons of national identity and community pride. We talk about what it’s like growing up around all that sculptural magic, and the sweat and tears of his father’s artistic life.

And Ceri speaks very candidly about his father’s dual mission to elevate everyday people, particularly Welsh achievers and women through portraiture and to inspire communities with universal figures of of dignity and family. We also talk about Ceri’s own journey from an academic in art history to life as a practicing painter and curator, and his interest in the vital public projects in Wales, such as the Monumental Welsh Women Campaign and the forthcoming statue of Rod Morgan.

I began our conversation today by asking what it was like growing up in Robert Thomas’s studio.

Ceri: My father was born in the Rhondda, my mother in Barry. But they both studied art and went on to the old college in London. So, the first studio I remember of his would’ve been when I was in primary school, well, a toddler really.

That was in Ealing, in West London. He had a custom-built studio; it was a Victorian semi-detached house. My parents lived there, and my grandmother, who was widowed, lived upstairs as well. My mother was her only child. So, it was a big house with a big garden.

He had a custom-built studio there. This would have been in the early 1960s. For example, the Coalville sculpture, which we met through, was produced in that studio in 1963. I would’ve been about four or four and a half when that was done. So, I can remember the studio then. As a child, it seemed huge to me, but it was almost the width of the whole plot, and it was double height, so it was a really big space. That was his first studio, and I’m pretty sure it had north-facing light as well.

To me, it was like an Aladdin’s cave. There were completed sculptures, works in progress, plaster casts of earlier sculptures, drawings around the place. There was what he called a deus, so I learned the word ‘deus’ early on. It was basically a converted, cut-down table on little casters, and if he was modelling someone’s head, they’d be sat on that dais. I saw quite a few famous people come in and sit on that dais.

At that point, he was using clay. Later in his career, he moved on to a modified form of plasticine that he co-developed with the producer of the material. Around big figures, like the Coalville one, was this huge box, essentially battens with pieces of cloth nailed around it. That was to keep the clay wet.

So, it was an amazing studio. And on the wall was an inscription that he put up. It was just on an old piece of paper, and it was a motto he came up with, he called it his Thomas motto. It simply said,

‘Get on with it’.

Lucy: That’s perfect.

Ceri: And there’s an interesting subtitle, which I remember reading as I got older. It says,

Give the artist a chance, and they’ll make a world already beautiful, more beautiful.

Lucy: Oh, that is just, that’s magnificent. That really is.

Ceri: And this piece of paper dates to the 1960s, and it’s somehow survived.

Lucy: The thing is, it’s also that lovely sort of recognition that it’s not all magical creation, isn’t it? Most of it’s sweat and tears. And yes, there’s that bit of inspiration, for sure, but actually turning up and doing the hard work is a lot of it.

Ceri: Yeah. I mean, Dad was an inspiring kind of person. It’s not just me saying that, as I said a little while ago, it was my normal, but he was a kind of inspiring figure. He would captivate people of all age groups, from children to older people.

Lucy: Yeah, he had that kind of magnetic personality.

Ceri: One of his other phrases was, Inspiration’s fever. Inspiration’s fever heat, tempered by reason. I seek majesty. That goes back to his youth when he had worked, partly, with a coy blacksmith. So, this idea of inspiration’s fever heat.

Lucy: So, he had that inspiration, but then it had to be tempered?

Ceri: Exactly. You can imagine the hammer being swung, by reason, by icy majesty. And I think that’s what he was trying to do in his work. He instinctively had this inspiration, but he had to control it with a degree of reason.

Lucy: Yeah. And practicality, as you said.

Ceri: I remember in that same studio, I literally had my first run-on part, which was when the BBC film crew came in 1963, when he was making the figure for Coalville, the mother and child. The child, of course, was me.

Lucy: You! Yes, you star!

Ceri: My father was always roping us in to pose for him. I was watching from the sidelines while they were filming and talking, standing next to my mum, and I just, I don’t know why, I was only four, four and a half and I ran into shot.

That was in that studio. The film was called Standpoint, it was a BBC film, and we can’t find it. So, if anyone out there has access to BBC archives, we lived in Ealing, so it may well have been the Ealing Studios, but it was BBC, 1963. Someone must have that.

Lucy: Someone must.

Ceri: I keep hoping.

Dr Ceri Thomas, the Mayor of Coalville & Lucy with the 1963 statue, Mother & Child by Robert Thomas. September 2024

Lucy: Yeah. Did he want you to be artistic, do you think? Or is that something that’s really just grown out of your nature?

Ceri: I think it’s out of my nature, really. I mean, best way I can describe it, Lucy, I’m one of three children, and my brother and sister do have an artistic side to them, definitely. But the way I put it when people ask me that kind of question is: whereas they stopped drawing as we were growing up, I kept going.

Lucy: OK. But I suppose a lot of children will draw instinctively, and then secondary education often beats it out of them, doesn’t it?

Ceri: Because art isn’t seen as a serious subject, you know?

Lucy: Yeah.

Ceri: But I kept doing it. So it wasn’t a question of Dad or Mum encouraging us to be artists, it’s just that we were always surrounded by creativity. When my school friends used to come to the house, they literally had their mouths open. And when I went back to their homes, I sort of understood why. One of my friends, his dad was a bank manager. Quite different.

Lucy: Very different. Yeah. I bet he was envious of you.

Ceri: I think so. I think my friends were just amazed, really, which I suppose is a kind of envy.

Lucy: But I mean, you’ve been a great voice for your father’s work.

Ceri: I’m creating a website at the moment.

Lucy: Yes, I was going to say, you are, aren’t you?

Ceri: Yeah. I started building it last year, in 2024, because that was the 25th anniversary of his death. It seemed like a good moment. So that was last year. And of course, next year, I can’t believe it…

Lucy: It’ll be the centenary of his birth. Wow. OK, so he was born in 1926, in the year of the General Strike, right in the heart of the South Wales coalfield. We don’t choose when or where we’re born, do we? But it’s probably not ideal to be born in the South Wales Valleys in the middle of a miners’ strike and lockout.

Ceri: There was genuinely hard poverty he was born into.

Lucy: That’s probably why he was so tough, the grit was there, because you need a fair amount of that to be a professional artist of any kind. Have you published a book on his work?

Ceri: I’ll be doing the book on my father next year. The hope is to have it out by the end of 2026. And hopefully, though it’s not quite confirmed yet, so I can’t spill the beans, there’ll be a retrospective of his work. If it does happen, it will be the first ever retrospective.

Lucy: Oh gosh, I’ll be queuing up for tickets.

Ceri: Yeah.

Lucy: You’re also a curator, aren’t you? You have a specialism, but you’re working across different disciplines?

Ceri: When it came to A-levels, I got very conflicted because I was fairly academic, so there was that side of me, but I wanted to go to art school, like my parents. And I didn’t, because they were quite, portable, almost, as were my teachers and careers adviser. The message was: if you want to go to uni, forget art school.

Lucy: That’s mad.

Ceri: I’ve puzzled over it for years, because I still feel, why did I listen? But the basic argument they were making – my parents, my teachers – was job insecurity. I mean, now we live in a period of job insecurity, so for younger generations that phrase might be less meaningful. But when I was growing up, there were secure jobs out there and being an artist wasn’t one of them for most people.

Lucy: No, it wasn’t.

Ceri: So, as a result, I went to UCL and studied art history, the more academic side, joint honours with Italian. But me being me, I suppose a chip off the old block, while I was an undergrad at UCL, I used to draw from the Slade School life model. So, I was doing that alongside my degree.

Lucy: That’s brilliant.

Ceri: I had a year in Italy and worked with professional artists there. So, although I graduated in art history and Italian, I was doing art alongside as well.
Then, a couple of years later, I went to Aberystwyth and did an MA called Visual Art, a bit of a catchphrase at the time, which was a combination of art history and art practice.

Lucy: So, you were always doing both?

Ceri: Yes, and out of those activities, I’ve grown as a professional artist as well as an art historian. But then what also emerged out of that, and I think many of us have to multitask, is art curation. So that takes me across disciplines.

Independence by Robert Thomas (1965-6). University of South Wales, on loan from the Derek Williams Trust

Lucy: You’re very interested in the Monumental Welsh Women project, aren’t you?

Ceri: Absolutely.

Lucy: Can you tell us a little about that?

Ceri: Yeah, I can. I mentioned earlier that Welsh art, whether it’s painting or sculpture, is a bit of a well-kept secret. Wales is probably better known for its actors, sportsmen and women, or its singers.

Lucy: Singing, yes, Tom Jones?

Ceri: Absolutely. Shirley Bassey, Cerys Matthews, whoever you want to name, Manic Street Preachers…

Lucy: Yeah.

Ceri: And not just rugby players, lots of sportsmen and women from Wales.
But when it comes to sculpture in particular, and also to recognising women achievers in Wales, it’s even more of a well-kept secret, even within Wales.

So, a project was initiated about five years ago, called Monumental Welsh Women. The aim was to commission five new statues in and around Wales of five women achievers.

Lucy: That’s incredible.

Ceri: These were all 20th-century figures, except for one. Some of them only passed away very recently, so their influence carried into the 21st century. The first one was Betty Campbell.

Lucy: Yes – Eve Shepherd’s statue.

Ceri: Exactly. And also, being a Black Welsh woman, she was a trailblazer. She was the first Black head teacher in Wales, among many other achievements.

So that’s in Cardiff. Then they produced another statue of Elaine Morgan, the famous writer, and that’s in Mountain Ash, which is where she was from.
The third one was Cranogwen, a 19th-century female figure, and that’s in West Wales, in Llangrannog. The fourth was Lady Rhondda, quite an entrepreneur, and that’s in Newport, South Wales. They’re just finalising the fifth and final statue for the moment, which will be of Elizabeth Andrews.

Lucy: So, before that, there wasn’t really any representation of women in sculpture. Not really. Not individual women.

Ceri: Yes, and in fact their website mentions that. But I actually contacted them recently because, through my research, I realised that my father may have created what is probably the first bronze statue of a woman in Wales, at least in modern times.
Now that I’ve said that, I’m sure something else will turn up…

Lucy: Yes, something always does. But none that come to mind right now.

Ceri: What he did was create a statue of a woman named Lady Grace James. After she died, her husband, a businessman, not an industrialist, set up various charities in her memory. One of them included a statue of her, which now stands in a village hall in West Wales.

So, there is some precedent, and my father was always very keen to represent women.
He often included female figures in what he called his “free figure” sculptures, those weren’t portraits, but archetypal male and female forms.

When it came to portraits, he did try. He corresponded with Sian Phillips, the actress, who I believe is still with us, now in her 90s and still very active. At that time, she was married to Peter O’Toole and was just extremely busy, so it didn’t happen.
He also met with Shirley Bassey, a kind of counterpart to Betty Campbell, really, another Black woman from Cardiff, from Tiger Bay as it was then known.

Lucy: Yes.

Ceri: Again, she was incredibly busy performing at the time, so that didn’t come off either. Another person he hoped to sculpt was Laura Ashley, the fashion designer of Welsh descent. But she died very suddenly, not at a great age.

So, the only Welsh woman he successfully sculpted a bust of was Dame Gwyneth Jones, the opera singer from the South Wales Valleys. Through sheer talent, she became an international star.

I remember when I was a little boy, my parents would get dressed up to go to Covent Garden. I was amazed watching my mother put on her satin gloves that went up to her elbows. They had a long pair of opera glasses and off they went. Gwyneth Jones used to perform at Covent Garden.

Lucy: Gosh.

Ceri: He did a beautiful bust of her. Her hair was piled high at the back. He used to say she was a “Welsh Nefertiti.” I don’t know if you know the classical Egyptian sculpture, Nefertiti, with the famous headdress. The shape is similar.

If anyone wants to see it, there’s a series of photos of the bust on the Art UK website. Just search for “Robert Thomas sculptor.”

Lucy: Oh, interesting. So, is seeing more of these women commemorated in bronze something you’re quite passionate about?

Ceri: Absolutely.

Lucy: And how have you been involved?

Ceri: Well, the way I’ve been involved is through that interest in representation, not just of women, but of working-class people too. For example, Gwyneth Jones came from a working-class background. And as you and I know, whether in London or Birmingham, Edinburgh or Cardiff, most of the statuary tends to be 19th-century and usually of an elite, not of what we might call ordinary people.

Aneurin Bevan statue in 1987 (unveiled on what would have been Nye’s 90th birthday). Michael Foot MP, with sculptor Robert Thomas at the unveiling, Queen Street, Cardiff. November 1987

Lucy: No. And your father was absolutely brilliant at that, wasn’t he?

Ceri: Yes. That was very much part of his background. He came from a working-class family, as did my mother. They later became professionals, of course. They got what we’d now call degrees, lived in London, and eventually returned to Wales.

So, yes, I’m very interested in the representation of ordinary people. At the moment, the statue I’m involved with, I’m on the committee, is for the forthcoming sculpture of Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales.

So, if we now contextualise that, he became the First Minister when the National Assembly was set up just over 25 years ago. There was a First Minister before him, but it had quite a shaky start. The early days of the Assembly, which is now called the Senedd, the Welsh word for Parliament were a bit uncertain, and Rhodri stabilised that.

He was bilingual. He didn’t come from a working-class background, but he certainly wasn’t from an elite one either. As you’d expect, he was Labour which is often the case in Wales. He was collaborative, too. In the first and subsequent elections, he worked with Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats.

Some of his colleagues were a bit edgy about that, but he was someone who included others. He famously said, “I don’t want a statue of me.” So, after he died, some of his colleagues said, “That’s exactly why we need one.” He had the common touch. He’d walk through Cardiff Market with a plastic carrier bag, just shopping and chatting to people who lived nearby.

And he was equally comfortable talking to an American president or a French politician. He really was an inspiring man. I’m on the committee, and we’re due to meet soon to select the sculptor from a shortlist of three. The statue will stand in Cardiff Bay outside the Senedd, the Parliament building.

Lucy: He’d be spitting feathers, looking down, spitting feathers!

Ceri: Well, his widow and his older brother are both on the committee, and they’re far from spitting feathers! They were embarrassed at first, but now they’re thrilled.

Lucy: Of course they are.

Ceri: Because the point of the sculpture, and this links to my father’s work, it’s not about a cult of the individual. If I can use the word ‘cult’, it’s about a celebration of humanity. Of community. In this case, Rhodri Morgan was an enabler.

If we go back to the mid-20th century, the equivalent figure for my father would have been Aneurin Bevan. My dad saw Bevan speak live. There are recordings, but my father always said he was absolutely magnetic. And of course, Attlee knew what he was doing when he appointed Nye to organise the founding of the NHS. At the time, many doctors were well-paid and actually resistant to the idea of a national health service. But Bevan had the charm, and, as he said himself, the cunning to make it happen.

Last year, I went to the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay, right next to the Senedd and saw Michael Sheen perform as Aneurin Bevan. Michael is such a hero in Wales, from working-class Port Talbot, and honestly, you can’t get a bigger star. He performed to thousands, and he’s bringing it back this year.

Lucy: Amazing.

Ceri: Again, that idea, whether it’s Rhodri or Nye, it’s not really about the individual.
It’s about a celebration of humanity. And the fact is, someone with talent and drive can come from a working-class background, or from a middle or upper-class one.

Lucy: Yes. It’s about opportunity for all.

Ceri: Exactly.

Lucy: And I suppose the fact that Wales is relatively short on commemorative sculpture actually creates an opportunity. There’s a bit of momentum now, and we’re not just celebrating wealthy men on plinths. This is a chance to commemorate really interesting leaders from different walks of life, hopefully just as many women as men, and people of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Different kinds of personalities too, ones we might not see as often in London, where there’s such a flood of public sculpture in a certain style that there’s no space for anything more interesting.

Ceri: That’s a really good point.

Lucy: It’s a chance for a new kind of public lecture, in a way.

Ceri: Yes, you’re right. In some ways, the shortage of public statuary in Wales could actually be seen as an advantage, a real opportunity. A kind of creative fertility that, in future, people might look at and say, “This is really different.”

Lucy: Right next door in England, there’s such a history of public sculpture, and it’s different in Wales. But we’ve got a real drive now. Is that something you’re hoping to see more of, more sculpture in Wales?

Ceri: Absolutely. Definitely, yes. And I do think it’s already happening. My father, in his later years, he died in 1999, was still working. He was 72, but still creating, still full of ideas. He went in for a planned operation, and unfortunately, things changed and he passed away in hospital. But in the 1980s and 90s, he started to notice a return of interest in figurative sculpture.

There was a phase, especially in the 60s and 70s, when it fell out of fashion. What’s intriguing is that since his death, over the last 20 years, we’ve seen more and more figurative sculpture appearing right across the UK.

Lucy: Yes, and that’s wonderful to see.

CT’s triple portrait of Robert Thomas, Welsh Sculptor

Ceri: It is. Speaking personally, wearing my own hat, I’m a painter, not a sculptor. I’ve done a tiny bit, but essentially I’m a painter. And I’d love to see the same celebration in Wales for painting, both for 20th-century talent and for living artists too. There is so much out there.

My father set himself two key projects around 1960. He was very clear about it.
The first was what he called his portrait series of Welsh achievers. I suppose they were all Welsh achievers, maybe the exception being Diana, although some would argue she achieved something new in her role. But certainly not from a working-class background.

Lucy: No, quite.

Ceri: So yes, the portrait series was one side of it. The other was what he called his “free figure sculpture”, which was really a celebration of the emergent female form, especially women, but also universal themes like family. Things intended to inspire everyone.

The portrait works were mostly for indoor settings. The free figure sculptures were designed for outdoors, for the public. He saw it as a mission.

I’d like to read something from his obituary in The Guardian, written by Professor Peter Stead. He said this:
“The history of modern Wales can be found in the bronzes of the sculptor Robert Thomas. His bronzes and full-length studies were icons of the Wales arriving at a fullest sense of itself. He captured the physical and spiritual essence of his subjects with naturalism and realism, always streamlined into a classical heroic formalism.”

He used the phrase “icons of Wales,” which I think is powerful.
And by pure coincidence, another obituary, this time by Professor Mike Stephens in The Independent – said:

“Several of his sculptures, for example the larger-than-life monument to Aneurin Bevan on one of the capital’s main thoroughfares, have become icons of contemporary Wales.”

Lucy: Both using that word, icon.

Ceri: Yes, and I know sometimes “icon” can be overused, but in this case, it was two different professors, one of history, one of literature, both saying the same thing about my father’s work in 1999.

Lucy: That’s quite something. So your mission then, it sounds a bit like Tom Cruise.

Ceri: Ha! “Your mission, if you choose to accept it…” – yes, exactly.
I suppose my mission is to see the 2D arts celebrated in the same way. One example of that: I did a full-length painting of Colin Jackson.

Lucy: The athlete?

Ceri: Yes. Black, Welsh, and a phenomenal sportsman. I painted him in the early 90s, and at one point it was exhibited at the National Museum in Cardiff. It wasn’t me trying to tick boxes, yes, he’s Black, yes, he’s Welsh, it was just that Colin was Cardiff-born and based.

His sister, by the way, is Suzanne Packer, a very talented actress. But Colin was, at that time, the best high hurdler in Wales and, for a while, in the world. He held the world record.

Again, this idea that you can be Black, you can be Welsh, you can come from a modest background and you can still achieve.

Yeah. So that was an example, I suppose, of my work where I was saying, this is someone, when I approached Colin about it, he was delighted. But it wasn’t something he’d thought about. But when the painting’s been exhibited, it’s inspired people.
So, you know, if I through my writing and painting can inspire not just the older generation but also young people, if I can inspire them to say, “I could do that,” then that’s everything.

And that might mean, “I could do that sport,” or “I could write that book,” or “I could paint that picture,” or “I could make that sculpture.” And if I can do that, and if my father can do that posthumously, through the retrospective we’re hoping to have next year, and certainly through my book about him, then hopefully we’re both sending out a message.
That things have happened in Wales, and are still happening. But also, it’s a message saying: you can do it too.

Lucy: Yes, exactly. So, tell people where they can find out a little bit more about your work. I really encourage people to have a look at your paintings because they’re marvellous.

Ceri: Oh, thank you. Well, I’ve got a website: www.cerithomasart.com.
At the moment, the reply section, you know, if people want to leave comments, that isn’t working.
But if they want to contact me directly, they can email me at: cerithomasart@gmail.com.

Lucy: Perfect, I’ll make sure both of those go in the show notes. And we’ll include some of your paintings in the blog post at sculpturevulture.co.uk, so people can have a proper look at your work. It’s completely different from your father’s, but now that you’ve talked about it, I can really see where there’s crossover, a kind of cross-pollination.

Ceri: Thank you ever so much for having me, Lucy. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Lucy: I have too, thank you, Ceri. It’s been a real pleasure to talk to you today, and it was absolutely lovely to meet you in person as well.

Ceri: Likewise. That day in Coalville was one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a long time. The unveiling, being with you, restoring the piece, it was fantastic.
We were relaunching a statue of a confident, emergent young woman in a former coalfield area in England. To be part of that and to be here today on your podcast, it’s been wonderful.

Lucy: I’ve wanted to get you on the podcast ever since then. And now we’ve done it.
Yay!