A 98-year-old renowned artist who still paints every day and was a popular teacher at Swansea School of Art, with students queuing in the hallways to sign up for her classes, began her life and her teaching career in Fishguard.
Glenys Cour was born in Fishguard in 1924. In 1945, just as the Second World War ended, she turned down a teaching job in the north of England to take up a post at Fishguard Grammar School.
“When I came out of art college I went to teach in Fishguard by accident because my grandparents lived down there,” she said in an interview with Katy Freer and Jane Simpson for the Art Society collaborative project.
“I happened to meet the headmaster he said ‘our art teacher has left to get married’.
“I said I would love to teach in a grammar school in Fishguard with my grandmother and my aunt and he said ‘yes alright then’.
Glenys describes Fishguard as a ‘lovely old grammar school’ where she taught from a classroom with views across the bay.
She probably would have remained there for a lot longer.
"I loved it. I had a lovely social life, everything was wonderful," she said.
"Had it not been for a chance encounter with her former art school headmaster who had become a school inspector.
“He came through the door. He looked at me and said ‘what are you doing here? Ridiculous, get up the line’.
“He meant London but I didn’t want to because I was so happy, but I felt I must and I did and I came as far as Swansea.”
Glenys taught in a grammar school in Swansea before lecturing at Swansea College of Art in the early 1960s.
Her classes were highly sought-after.
“I used to have a queue outside,” she said. “Because what I was teaching was different to what everyone else was teaching, because I had been taught by Ceri Richards. What I knew hadn't got down to Swansea yet. And of course, everybody wanted to know about it.”
Glenys enjoyed three happy decades as a lecturer. She specialised in stained glass after 1978 and was still teaching at Swansea College of Art into the 1990s before her age (she was in her mid-70s by then) was discovered and she begrudgingly stopped.
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Her work recent work is on display at Mission Gallery in Swansea as part of a collaborative exhibition organised by University of Wales Trinity Saint David’s (UWTSD) Swansea College of Art in celebration of the University’s bicentenary.
The exhibition is centred around art education provided by Swansea College of Art over its long history, and involves individual shows put on by five local galleries all linked to this theme.
One such show is Art Society, Swansea College of Art: Artists from the Collection at Glynn Vivian and GS Artists in the city centre, which focuses on past pupils and lecturers of the college.
The Provost of UWTSD’s Swansea Campus and former Dean of Swansea College of Art, Professor Ian Walsh described Glenys as a ‘National Treasure’.
“Her dedication to her art and sheer passion for life is unparalleled, and puts artists half her age very much in the shade,” he said. “We’re so proud to call Glenys one of our own.”
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