The Moon and a Smile

Mary Dillwyn was Wales’s earliest female photographer, and one of Britain’s notable early female photographers, one of four children born to Lewis Weston Dillwyn and Mary Adams of the Penllergare estate near Swansea. She is said to have ‘captured the first smile’ on camera.

Glynn Vivian has invited nine international contemporary artists respond to Mary Dillwyn and her work. This major exhibition will explore ideas of private and public, landscape, still life photography and notions of collaboration and ownership.
The idea for the exhibition stemmed from Helen Sear’s work “Pastoral Monuments” referencing the flower photographs of Mary Dillwyn, the 19th Century Swansea photographer, made by Helen in 2012.
Helen Sear is one of Wales’ significant contemporary artists, and is known for her practise that explores the crossover between photography and fine art. Helen represented Wales at the Venice Biennale 2015 and was recipient of the Wakelin Award 2013.
It became clear that the large resource of photographs from the Dillwyn Circle located in various collections in Wales had a much greater potential to be used as source material for a newly commissioned group show and a contemporary response to this exciting period of time in the history of photography in and around Swansea and South Wales.