Some of its success – exhibitions and tours outside Wales – have been attributed to his language skills and European outlook. They circulated a statement of purpose and aims and an invitation to join the group to ten leading Welsh artists. Working in a museum and occasionally collecting work for the national collection I realise just how difficult it is to collect a cohesive and such an important group of works and thanks from all of us need to go to Barrie Maskell for such an important collection. The exhibition was shown at venues in Pontypridd, Cardiff and MOMA Wales in Machynlleth.

• Although all 12 of the founder-members worked in a broadly modernist and internationalist idiom, they did not share a recognisably common style or ideology.
• The 56 Group has always been essentially an exhibiting association of artists who retain their own independence and individuality.
• Working in a museum and occasionally collecting work for the national collection I realise just how difficult it is to collect a cohesive and such an important group of works and thanks from all of us need to go to Barrie Maskell for such an important collection.
• The exhibition was shown at venues in Pontypridd, Cardiff and MOMA Wales in Machynlleth.
• Will Roberts, one of the founder members, who was afterwards (in 1964) asked to withdraw from exhibitions because his work was seen as insufficiently radical, later dismissed the Group as having been “set up by art school teachers who wanted to sell their work”.

Will Roberts, one of the founder members, who was afterwards (in 1964) asked to withdraw from exhibitions because his work was seen as insufficiently radical, later dismissed the Group as having been “set up by art school teachers who wanted to sell their work”. It is accompanied by an exhibition of the collection at the University of Glamorgan which has been curated by Dr Ceri Thomas.Book is available from.Goldstone Books,10, Hall Street,CarmarthenSA31 1PHSue Lloyd-Davies Books,94, Catherine Street,CarmarthenSA31 1RF Its first continental exhibition was held in Amsterdam in 1967, and later exhibitions went to Nantes in 1974–5, Bologna in 1983, Czechoslovakia in 1986–7 and again in 1991, and Libramont, Belgium, in 1994. This website containing my private collection of fifty-six works by all twelve founder members of the 56 Group, which subsequently renamed itself The 56 Group Wales, is published in tribute to their contribution to Welsh art. The group’s first exhibition was held at Worcester Museum and Art Gallery in June 1957, and versions of the same exhibition were held later the same year at the National Museum of Wales and Tenby Civic Centre. The 56 Group has always been essentially an exhibiting association of artists who retain their own independence and individuality.

This article includes a list of general references but lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations.

This included a visit to one of the surviving founders, John Wright, who was living in Spain. Their average age was 36; and ten worked as art lecturers (Roberts and spartaza sign in Edmonds did not). Although all 12 of the founder-members worked in a broadly modernist and internationalist idiom, they did not share a recognisably common style or ideology. The post-war art establishment in Wales was still very conservative and moves had been afoot since the late 1930s to create a modern art group. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations.