Glyn Hughes 1931 - 2014

207 The year 2005 was a very important one for Glyn. On the initiative of his close friends Kaiti Clerides and Charalambos Sergiou, and the support of the British Council and the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus, a major retrospective, travelling exhibition was organised in his native Wales. The exhibition, curated by Tracy Simpson, was organised in collaboration with the Arts Council of Wales and Wrexham Arts Centre, where it was first mounted in November 2005. The same exhibition was presented at the Coliseum Art Gallery of the Ceredigion County Council Museum, also in Wales. On the occasion of the exhibition, a thick catalogue of Glyn’s work was published in English and Welsh. Glyn was extremely happy of his return to his hometown – a vindication of the many years of his artistic pursuits in Cyprus, away fromhis own country. Returning to Cyprus, he continued his artistic activities at his home on 1 Xanthis Street in Kaimakli. Rejuvenated by the warm reception he enjoyed in Wales, he painted a new series of works for an exhibition at Gloria Gallery, which was opened on 27 April 2006 by Kaiti Clerides, who had also inaugurated the exhibition in Wales. As Glyn says: “These are rather different with more heightened colour and often ambiguous titles. The northern range of Cyprus is still an obsession in many works but though the ‘vision’ ismore confused the paintings are full of clarity. There is less texture than usual with much use of pure pigment. The titles of course are deliberately double edged, perhaps hinting other truths of our difficult time. Painted with vigour and often with considerable speed these are the latest paintings from an old hand.” But despite his inexhaustible energy, Glyn faced many health problems in the last years of his life, as a result of which he kept getting weaker and weaker. His last exhibition was held at Kat’oikon Gallery in Old Nicosia from 21 to 28 September 2012, where he attended the opening. After the exhibition, Glyn remained bedridden and weak at his home in Kaimakli. In November of the same year he was admitted to Sokratio Melathron care home in Limassol. There, he lived with dignity and patience for the last two years of his life. At dawn of Thursday, 23 October 2014, Glyn Hughes left his last breath at Limassol General Hospital, where he had been transferred following a cardiac arrest. Glyn, as he had confided in a close friend, loved Thursdays... The return to Wales and the last years in Cyprus [2005–2014]