Wales is fortunate in being able to boast a whole range of writers, musicians, singers and artists who have achieved international acclaim.
Artistic endeavour and excellence seem to go hand in hand with the Celtic spirit and nowhere is that statement more obvious than in the mining valleys of the country. In painting and in the visual arts the Rhondda, in particular, has had a lasting influence and effect.
Pembrokeshire might have spawned Gwen and Augustus John; north Wales might have sustained the talent of Kyffin Williams. But the Rhondda, with its interwoven webs of industrial architecture and social deprivation once produced a like-minded group of painters and sculptors that soon became known as 'The Rhondda School'.
The Rhondda School of artists was never an actual school, in the formal sense, and was in no way an official grouping. The produced no manifesto or statement about their aims – they were, simply, a group of students from the Rhondda who, in the early 1950s, travelled by train down the valley each day to study at Cardiff College of Art.
The legend about these six men states that they would spread their drawings and paintings across the seats of the railway carriage – thereby discouraging anyone else from entering the compartment – and discuss painting and art for the full length of the journey. For two hours, as the old steam train rattled down the valley, these eager and dedicated men would discuss art with all of the bravado and enthusiasm that go with youth, talent and emerging skill.
The men in question were Ernest Zobole, Charles Burton, Glyn Morgan, Nigel Flower, David Mainwaring and Robert Thomas. They came from different locations in the Rhondda and so boarded the train at different times and at different stations but their aim was the same – to discuss art and artists.
Zobole had been born in Ystrad, the son of Italian immigrants who arrived in Wales in 1910. He is perhaps the best known of the group, a man whose gradual move away from descriptive painting to more abstract work reflects the general trend within the Rhondda School.
Zobole, who died in 1999, might have been the best known but all of the group were influential in their effect on art within Wales.
Charles Burton, for example, became Head of Art at the Polytechnic of Wales while it was still based in Barry, dozens of students ing through his department each year. Once he had finished his course, Burton had moved from Cardiff College of Art to London, to study at the Royal College. With no grant to him he had to sell paintings in order to live. It was a hard lesson to learn but one which the young man took to with gusto.
These days the sculptures of Robert Thomas can be seen at many locations, in particular in Queen Street, Cardiff. They are stunning representations of Welsh life but it is probably the tall and striking statue of Aneurin Bevan, just opposite Cardiff Castle, that people will know best.
All of the Rhondda School were influenced by the industrial environment from which they came. It was impossible not to be affected by the winding gear of the collieries, the rows of terraced houses and the slag heaps that dominated the valley towns. Nor, for that matter, the broken old men who stood silently at almost every street corner – you would have had to be pretty unemotional not to be touched by all that. And the of The Rhondda School were keen to reflect their communities and their way of life.
As such – at least to begin with – there was a distinct socialist edge to their work. That interest may have dissolved a little as abstract art began to make itself felt on the group’s work but it never totally died away.
The School – or group, call it what you will – broke up as the artists finished their studies at Cardiff Art College and moved away to different places and different jobs. Yet the influence of the School remained strong. It is another example of the vibrant and dynamic drive for expression that existed and still exists in the Welsh valleys.
