For six decades Charles Burton has been one of the major figures of art in Wales. Born in 1929, he grew up amid the poverty of the pre-war Rhondda. Even as a student he was a central figure in the influential Rhondda Group, his work was purchased for public collections and he won the Gold Medal of the National Eisteddfod. Carel Weight described him as "one of the most lively" of a Royal College generation that included Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Fred Cuming and Leon Kossof. He was a charismatic head of painting at Liverpool College of Art when it was a hub of pop culture in the 1960s. Since returning to Wales in 1970 he has continued to produce works of brilliant serenity.0This book presents for the first time the full breadth of Charles Burton's career, from the vigour of his earliest Valleys landscapes through paintings made in Egypt during National Service to his cool abstracts and expressive heads of the 1960s and the elegant perfection of his still lifes, interiors and landscapes of the last four decades.

In 1942 Wade Grissom was the loyal forty-five-year-old assistant manager of prestigious Wake Bank and Trust Company, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. In six months his fifteen-year dream of becoming manager of the fourth largest bank in the state would be realized. Everyone knew Wade deserved the promotion. However abruptly the Board of Directors of Wake Bank decided to open a branch bank in the small tobacco town of Kinston, and to name Wade Grissom manager, thus ending his promising future at Wake Bank. This slap in the face infuriated Wade Grissom, and he vowed revenge. The only thing that stood in his way wasone thief too many.

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