Lewis Wirth (1923-2010) and Helen née Cavarra (1926-1978) are two artists who attended the Government School of Art from 1946 to 1951, receiving several honourable merits.
They met at the school and married in 1952. Lewis sailed to Tripoli on the ‘Celio’ on 4 September, 1951, to work for Barclays Bank DCO, where he spent 18 years. He was greatly influenced by the Libyan culture, with enthusiasm he dedicated much of his free time painting the Zakkara dancers, the Roman ruins of Sabratha and Leptis Magna, museum pieces, arches, streets and market scenes, in various mediums, including collage and scrapper-board, creatively depicting Arab life. African art, during the post-war period has been neglected and Lewis fits perfectly into this era.
In Tripoli he exhibited annually in the Barclays Bank and Dante Alleghieri Societá art exhibitions, receiving a gold medal. On returning to Malta in 1969 he dedicated himself to the local scene, painting in oil, watercolour, pen and ink, pastel, pencil, his favourite places being St Julian's Bay, Valletta, Buskett, Dingli cliffs and various country roads with wayside chapels.
Helen dedicated her time to painting flora of Malta which she picked while on country outings with the Natural History Society (today renamed Nature Trust), under Guido Lanfranco. With great detail she painted a collection of over 380 wild flowers in watercolour, leaving documentation of the 1970's Malta flora, some non-existent today. An additional book on the scientific and artistic value of these flowers will be published soon. This was a time spent together during the last five years of her life. Her work includes the Govt. School of Art works (1946-1951), and the Heatherley School of Fine Arts, London (1948), where she was able to study the nude figure, at that time not available in Malta. She painted portraits in oil and pencil, with a stylisation influenced by Chev Emvin Cremona, e.g. Portrait of Woman as depicted here.
'The life and work of Lewis Wirth and Helen Cavarra, their creative partnership' - a book by Joseph Paul Cassar - embodies the art of these two artists who may be unknown to many but this is the scope of this book. The name of Lewis Wirth and his wife Helen née Cavarra are two leading protagonists and diligent art students, who followed the rigorous training programme together with some of the major upcoming artists of the time such as Frank Portelli, Samuel Bugeja, Antoine Camilleri, Saviour Casabene, Tony Pace, alongside other women artists such as Blanche Ellul Sullivan and Terry Asphar.
They benefited from the new approach to the teaching of art introduced by Chev Emvin Cremona who developed a long lasting friendship with the couple. Therefore, to dismiss the names of Lewis Wirth and Helen née Cavarra in the overall analysis of our modern art history shows only how much more needs to be studied about the period since there are still several lacunae that need to be researched thoroughly. The creative partnership developed by this couple is not only important, but continues to complete a better picture of the period, particularly the years between 1945 and 1970, when Maltese art was venturing on new grounds in trying to develop new idioms of artistic expression.
Wirth-Cavarra, a retrospective art exhibition curated by E.V. Borg, with over 150 works can be viewed until 18 August at the Auberge D’Italie, Merchants’ Street, Valletta, from 8pm to 5pm.
For further details on the purchase of book (336 pp, over 500 illustrations), contact: [email protected]/21442468/79442468. The book is also available from Agenda Bookstores and A.C. Aquilina Booksellers