'Deiseb Heddwch 1923' (Womens Peace Centenary 1923) Poster by Efa Lois

This contemporary Welsh illustration titled 'Deiseb Heddwch 1923' (Womens Peace Centenary 1923), is A3 size (420mm x 297mm), and is printed on 190gsm silk paper. This poster is unmounted.

Efa Lois is an illustrator, from Ceredigion. Her work mainly focuses on positivity, flowers and mythology. She was Tafwyl’s official illustrator in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Her work has also featured on album covers and in her spare time she runs and illustrates ‘Prosiect Drudwen’, a blog documenting the forgotten women of Welsh history, and illustrates as part of the Rhithganfyddiad project.

On the 5th of April, 2023, a hundred-year-old Peace Petition signed by almost 400,000 Welsh women, was returned to Wales, marking the centenary of a women-led, Welsh anti-war effort. Since 1923, the petition had been preserved and exhibited by the National Museum of American History, in Washington DC. Its journey began when a group of women from Wales determined to undertake a campaign for world peace, five years after the horrors of the First World War had shattered Europe.

The chest and petition (which is said to be 7 miles long), arrived at the National Library of Wales to a warm welcome by the people involved in the Women’s Peace Petition Partnership, who have worked over many years to bring it back home. The return of the Petition signals the first step in making it accessible to the people of Wales. Over the next year, the petition will be catalogued, digitised, and opened to the public to crowdsource its transcription, with exhibitions at the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru – St Fagans and Wrexham Museum.