Cardiff Local Guide A guide to all Things Cardiff
In 1986, Sir Peter Blake began illustrating Dylan Thomas’ most famous work, Under Milk Wood.
But the legendary pop artist, who famously co-created the sleeve design for The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, admits that the ‘play for voices’ just “wasn’t in fashion” at the time.
Now almost 30 years on, having invested hundreds of hours reading and listening to drama with its host of colourful characters, Sir Peter has completed his body of work.
On Thursday, his exhibition, Llareggub – named after Thomas’ fictional town – will receive a private view at National Museum Cardiff when a host of famous names, including actor Rhys Ifans and singer and presenter Cerys Matthews, are expected to attend. It will officially open to the public on Saturday and kickstarts the nationwide Dylan Thomas 100 commemorations.
Divided into three sections, visitors will be able to enjoy Sir Peter’s portraits of the characters, a series of watercolours illustrating the dream sequences at the beginning of the play and a group of works described as ‘topographical’, which includes scenes and locations from the play.
The 60 detailed portraits are all pencil drawings.
Blake has visualised everyone who is mentioned in the play’s cast list – from Mr Mog Edwards, the draper, to Nogood Boyo, the young fisherman, and Captain Cat, the old blind sea captain.
These portraits are both imaginary and real. The Dreams are an integral part of Under Milk Wood as almost all the characters are introduced to the audience or reader through a moment of their dreams. There are 26 works in this sequence, each one now numbered and inscribed at the bottom with the relevant passage from the text. Using watercolour adds a dreamlike quality to the works. Just as the dreams are surreal, Blake’s visualisations are also surreal.
Sir Peter, who celebrated his 80th birthday last year, said: “I was first aware of Under Milk Wood while studying at the Royal College of Art.
“The Welsh students at the college picked up on the play immediately.”
Before starting the Under Milk Wood project, he had been approached by Michael Mitchell of Libanus Press and asked to illustrate the text – Sir Peter’s intention was to produce a small series of wood engravings to illustrate the play in a limited edition book but he abandoned the engravings and the book failed to materialise at the time.
“As soon as I decided to illustrate Under Milk Wood, I researched it, read it and listened to it again and again. George Martin’s recording became my favourite. I still play it a couple of times a week and read it once a month.”
The exhibition is at National Museum Cardiff from Saturday until March 16 and Oriel y Parc, St David’s from May 17 to Sept 23.
