New exhibition brings the Wild Men of Arenig to Parc Howard Museum

The exhibition explores the remarkable artistic community that developed in the Arenig Valley in North Wales between 1910 and 1913 and celebrates the artists who helped shape modern Welsh art.

Highlights of the exhibition include Innes’s atmospheric Arenig Mountain, on loan from the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, and Lees’s Arenig Mawr, from the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent. On public display for the first time is a watercolour painting by Innes of Kidwelly Castle, purchased for the museum in 2025 following a major fundraising effort led by the Friends of Parc Howard Museum Llanelli, with donations from the Llanelli Art Society, the Llanelli and District Civic Society, and local individuals.

The Wild Men of Arenig explores how these three artists—Innes, John, and Lees—responded to the international Post-Impressionist art movement in a distinctive way unique to Wales. The bold colour and emotion of their landscapes expressed personal experience just as much as a sense of place. The exhibition explores the bohemian lifestyle of the Arenig community and the influence of the women—including Euphemia Lamb and Dorelia McNeill—who helped shape its creative vision.

Councillor Hazel Evans, Carmarthenshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Leisure, Culture and Tourism, said:

“We are delighted to bring this high-quality art exhibition to Parc Howard Museum. Augustus John and James Dickson Innes were among the most significant Welsh artists of the first half of the twentieth century; they achieved national and international recognition and helped shape the direction of modern British art.

We are particularly proud to showcase the latest addition to the museum’s collection—a painting of Kidwelly Castle by the Llanelli-born artist James Dickson Innes—and we are very grateful to the museum’s local volunteers and supporters for making the purchase of this painting possible.