Oil on canvas
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Collection
© Estate of Evan Walters
Cockle Woman, 1939
The Cockle Woman is one of Walters’ most famous and iconic images. Painted in 1939, it depicts Sarah Goss of Llangyfelach dressed as a local cockle woman. Sarah Goss was, in fact, not a cockle woman but a close associate of the Walters’ family. Walters borrowed a cockle woman’s outfit and persuaded Sarah Goss to pose for him. The portrait is a glowing work, full of rich colour, in which Walters used, with real success, his somewhat controversial horizontal brushwork and ‘double vision’ technique to portray a woman of warmth and character.
Dr Barry Plummer, Art Historian, Swansea.
