GIARDELLI, Arthur

1911 - 2009

Vincent Charles Arthur Giardelli was born at 5 Fentiman Road, Lambeth, London on 11 April 1911, son of Vinsenzo G. M. Giardelli (1843-1931), a secretary, who was born at Milan, Italy, and his wife Elizabeth née Sherlock (1863-) of Hackney, who married at Hackney, London in 1882. Arthur's childhood was spent mostly in Abinger, Surrey, also at Streatham and was educated at Alleyn's school, Dulwich, and went up to Hertford College, Oxford in 1930 to read French and Italian. He found time to attend classes at the Ruskin School of Art 1930–1934 and become college captain of soccer and president of an Oxford music club. He married at Romford, Essex in 1937, his first wife Phillis Evelyn Berry (12 March 1911-1980/2), and they had two children Judith and Lawrence. In 1939, a secondary school teacher, living at 8 Limes Road, Folkestone, Kent with his wife Phillis and was teaching French and English at Harvey grammar school, in Folkestone. He met the artists, Cedric Morris and Heinz Koppel (1919-1980) and was encouraged to become a professional artist, attending Morris's East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Benton End, Hadleigh, Suffolk. A Christian pacifist, influenced by Gandhi, he registered as a conscientious objector during the Second World War, which cost him his teacher's position, but in the late 1940s, the family settled in Pendine, Carmarthenshire, where he taught art history for the Workers' Educational Association and later, music at Cyfarthfa Castle grammar school and the Giardelli's established a guesthouse and a school for foreign students. He was pro-active in bringing art into south Wales communities and was one of the founders of the South Wales Group, later The Welsh Group, and of the 56 Group Wales, of which he became president and was influential in setting up the Rhondda Group and assisted in founding the University Art Collection at Aberystwyth. He exhibited regularly in Wales and at the Grosvenor Gallery in London; Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford and elsewhere. Vincent Charles Arthur Giardelli died at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, on 2 November 2009. His second wife, Beryl Mary (Bim) Butler, whom he married in 1976 died on 9 August 2011. Author with Derek Shiel of Arthur Giardelli: Painting, Constructions, Relief (2000).

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Works by This Artist