Well-known local writer and art historian Tom Lloyd was the speaker at a well attended meeting of the Ridgeway History Group last Wednesday.

Tom has a rare gift for being able to impart serious information at the same time frequently making his audience laugh.

His subject on Wednesday was the History of Art in Pembrokeshire in the period roughly 1750-1950. Our perception of artists has changed, over the years. Beginning with examples of Speeds' maps which were decorated with small drawings, he explained that in the early days artists were regarded as workmen. Before the time of photography, they were employed to produce an accurate record of their subject and he showed some highly detailed drawings of Picton Castle.

Later, the wealthy classes wanted more romantic pictures, so accuracy was abandoned in favour of beautiful pictures which sometimes bore little resemblance to their real subject. He showed some Turner paintings and then a series of other paintings in which lesser artists had experimented with light and shade.

One amazing picture of a sunset over Pembroke mill pond had the artist so carried away that he failed to notice that his sun was setting in the east!

He said that we owed a debt to many lady artists who, as daughters of prosperous families, had been taught to work in water colours and had left a valuable record of scenes which otherwise would have been forgotten. Interestingly, he pointed out that water colour was an almost exclusively British medium, as continental artists continued to use oil.

He concluded with an example of the work of the late Dorothy Morse Brown, who many will remember, and said it was a matter of pride that Pembrokeshire, with its natural beauty and wonderful light, was now home to a huge number of working artists.

The next meeting will be on November 5, when Annie Haycock will speak on Bats in Pembs.