0:00:13 > 0:00:17The Valleys of South Wales have a unique visual drama.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19I know of no other landscape
0:00:19 > 0:00:22where urban fingers press so deeply
0:00:22 > 0:00:25and closely into a wild,
0:00:25 > 0:00:28rugged upland.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35These valleys have inspired artists for more than two centuries.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38First they were attracted by the natural wilderness,
0:00:38 > 0:00:43but soon it was industry that fuelled their artistic imagination.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Here was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56And artists came here to record these extraordinary scenes.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11But artists didn't just portray the power of industry.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16They also showed the struggles of the people who worked within it.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27This was the world that I was born into
0:01:27 > 0:01:29and which formed me politically,
0:01:29 > 0:01:32as I became first a union official,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35and then a local Member of Parliament and Government Minister.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45But this place also inspired me to go to art college
0:01:45 > 0:01:49and dream of following in the footsteps of these artists.
0:01:56 > 0:01:58I'm going to look at how artists
0:01:58 > 0:02:01have described the Valleys for 250 years.
0:02:03 > 0:02:04But I also want to ask
0:02:04 > 0:02:07if they're trapped in a past so powerful
0:02:07 > 0:02:09that it's difficult to throw off.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11Very few artists
0:02:11 > 0:02:14describe the Valleys as they are now.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18That story doesn't have the brutal romance
0:02:18 > 0:02:24of a coalfield wracked with danger, disease...
0:02:24 > 0:02:26resilience and struggle.
0:02:50 > 0:02:52This isn't what you think of as the Valleys,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56but this is what first drew artists here 250 years ago.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59This is the Vale of Neath
0:02:59 > 0:03:02with its wooded valleys and its waterfalls.
0:03:07 > 0:03:08It's a real beauty spot,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11as it was in the late 18th century
0:03:11 > 0:03:14when artists journeyed hundreds of miles
0:03:14 > 0:03:17to come here and paint its unspoilt landscape.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24Industry was already present.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28There were ironworks and foundries tucked into the Valleys.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31But that wasn't what attracted artists.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33They came here for this wilderness.
0:03:36 > 0:03:37Towards the end of the 18th century,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41artists did start travelling to the South Wales Valleys,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43particularly in the 1790s.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46One very famous artist came - that was of course Turner.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48So Turner came here from London?
0:03:48 > 0:03:51- He... - That must've been quite a journey.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53It was an epic journey in those days before trains.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57He had to travel on horseback, on foot, by boat,
0:03:57 > 0:04:00carrying a large sketchbook, a small sketchbook,
0:04:00 > 0:04:02his painting box, his bag.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06He was a young man and he was a very intrepid spirit, very adventurous.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10And he set off in the summers on these trips that would last weeks.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12And if you think of it,
0:04:12 > 0:04:15these are places...they were uncharted territory for him.
0:04:15 > 0:04:16So in Turner's day,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19the Valleys were a kind of frontier?
0:04:19 > 0:04:22You would say that. It was before the Valleys had actually felt
0:04:22 > 0:04:24the full impact of the Industrial Revolution.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26But for him I think it was the nature,
0:04:26 > 0:04:30this very awe-inspiring nature that drew him here, that inspired him.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36So this must've been the spot he painted this from.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39I would say that he painted this on this very spot, yes.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Why would he have come here? He couldn't go to Europe?
0:04:42 > 0:04:45There were the French revolutionary wars in Europe,
0:04:45 > 0:04:47so artists couldn't travel to Europe.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50He'd studied at the Royal Academy from the age of 15.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54He was a landscape artist - he needed source material.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56If you were a young artist in London
0:04:56 > 0:04:59and wanted a wide range of landscapes,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03be it picturesque or wild and sublime like this,
0:05:03 > 0:05:05Wales was a good place for him to come.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09So for him, he was seeking maybe the extreme in nature,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13what we'd call the sublime landscape that fills you with awe,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16that fills you with fear and admiration at the same time.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18And I think under this thundering waterfall,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20he certainly would've found that.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48The waterfalls that inspired Turner
0:05:48 > 0:05:50also powered the ironworks and foundries
0:05:50 > 0:05:53that were springing up around here.
0:05:54 > 0:05:56And as the 19th century dawned,
0:05:56 > 0:06:00artists became less concerned with the spectacle of nature
0:06:00 > 0:06:02and more interested in the drama of industry...
0:06:03 > 0:06:08..with skies blackened by smoke from the furnaces.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10Artists weren't separate from these new industries
0:06:10 > 0:06:12but also worked in them.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16Thomas Hornor was a land surveyor who also painted
0:06:16 > 0:06:18the estates of the Valleys' ironmasters.
0:06:18 > 0:06:23Two of his key works are kept in the National Museum in Cardiff.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25Beth, what have we got here?
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Well, we've got this rather extraordinary work
0:06:27 > 0:06:30by the artist Thomas Hornor, that came out of an album.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33And this page is actually hinged and it would've, in the book,
0:06:33 > 0:06:39opened up to reveal this extraordinary image below -
0:06:39 > 0:06:42this wonderful vision of the Valley of Neath.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45As you can see, as well as depicting the landscape,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49we have this wonderful kind of orchestra of angels up in the sky.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05But at the same time as he was inventing these visions,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09he was also painting the new industry of the Valleys.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12Yeah. So the book is actually a tour, where you go through the valley
0:07:12 > 0:07:14and, as part of that tour,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18he visits some sites of industry.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22So again we can compare that work with this work
0:07:22 > 0:07:25which is further up, taken from Merthyr.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27And this is the Penydarren Ironworks,
0:07:27 > 0:07:28very dramatically lit.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33And he has chosen to do it at night-time so he can accentuate
0:07:33 > 0:07:36all the fire and the industry to make it much more dramatic.
0:07:36 > 0:07:37So, yeah, you can see really
0:07:37 > 0:07:40a progression from painting the landscape to actually
0:07:40 > 0:07:42artists becoming fascinated by
0:07:42 > 0:07:45the vibrancy of the industry that was happening.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48So you've got two landowners, essentially,
0:07:48 > 0:07:52commissioning Thomas Hornor to paint what they're proud of.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55Somebody wanting to paint this beautiful Vale of Neath
0:07:55 > 0:07:59and you've got another landowner who wanted to show off
0:07:59 > 0:08:03this cutting-edge industry - the new blast furnaces and rolling mills.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06Yeah. So they're showing, you know, the land that
0:08:06 > 0:08:10they're developing and their houses but they're also showing the industry
0:08:10 > 0:08:12and how they're making their money.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23The richest of the ironmasters were the Crawshay family.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29With the millions they made, the Crawshays built this mansion -
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Cyfarthfa Castle in Merthyr - to keep an eye on their empire.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39It still has the feeling of new money -
0:08:39 > 0:08:41showing off its power to the neighbours
0:08:41 > 0:08:45and to the people who did the work for them.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Generations of Crawshays stared down from these walls.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55They were stern industrialists who ruled with a will of iron.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58But the most impressive paintings here
0:08:58 > 0:09:01are on a much less grand scale.
0:09:16 > 0:09:17What have we got here?
0:09:17 > 0:09:20This is a watercolour of Cyfarthfa Ironworks
0:09:20 > 0:09:22by Penry Williams.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24He was commissioned by William Crawshay II
0:09:24 > 0:09:27the ironmaster, around about 1824-25 -
0:09:27 > 0:09:29when the castle was built -
0:09:29 > 0:09:33a series of watercolours to be given as a birthday present
0:09:33 > 0:09:35to his second wife, Isabel Crawshay.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37And so you can see the ironworks here,
0:09:37 > 0:09:39all the work going on,
0:09:39 > 0:09:41the workers in the foreground as well,
0:09:41 > 0:09:43and the engine houses in the back.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46- And this mass of smoke and flames going everywhere.- Yeah,
0:09:46 > 0:09:51you can imagine the smog lighting up the sky and the smell.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54You just get a feeling of it from the painting itself.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57You must've been able to see Merthyr from many miles away.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00Yeah, miles away. When it was night-time, you would've been
0:10:00 > 0:10:03able to see big, orange flames up in the night sky.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06Why would Crawshay have wanted this to be painted?
0:10:06 > 0:10:09There's very few pictures done in the 1820s.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11Obviously this is before photography as well.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15I think it was to show off his wealth and his status, really.
0:10:15 > 0:10:17He would've commissioned Penry Williams
0:10:17 > 0:10:19to do these and all of the others.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21That's right, cos he'd spotted his talent early on.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24Penry Williams had been here with his father.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27His father was a painter and a stonemason.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30And Penry came along on one of his jobs
0:10:30 > 0:10:32and he was sketching one day.
0:10:32 > 0:10:33This is reputedly.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36William Crawshay II saw his talent
0:10:36 > 0:10:40and along with John Josiah Guest - Dowlais ironmaster -
0:10:40 > 0:10:43they both made sure that they patronised him
0:10:43 > 0:10:45to go to the Royal Academy
0:10:45 > 0:10:47to develop his skills further.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49And because they needed somebody, didn't they,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51- to record these great works... - Exactly.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53..and this wealth and status that they had?
0:10:53 > 0:10:55Exactly. Local boy made good.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57This is one of the most famous images
0:10:57 > 0:11:00- of the Industrial Revolution. - That's right.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04Yeah, these very rare images of actually the work going on inside
0:11:04 > 0:11:07one of these rolling mills. It's a very unique image.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11You can only imagine the heat, the noise, the smell as well.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13- The scale is huge, isn't it?- Yeah.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16And you can actually see what the men are doing here.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18So Penry Williams, the artist,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22he must've been very familiar with the work that the men did.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26He probably would've been very friendly with them and known them
0:11:26 > 0:11:30as well, cos he was from the poor side of the tracks, as they say.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32That's actually the castle in the background,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36looking down very imperiously towards the ironworks.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39So William Crawshay could very easily see what was going on
0:11:39 > 0:11:41in the ironworks just down below.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44The workers must've been very pleased,
0:11:44 > 0:11:46seeing that HUGE castle up there(!)
0:11:46 > 0:11:49It's really rubbing these people's noses in it, isn't it?
0:11:49 > 0:11:51- Yes, I can imagine.- This vast house
0:11:51 > 0:11:53which would cost millions to build now.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55All the money made out of this,
0:11:55 > 0:11:58this enterprise here, the labour of these people
0:11:58 > 0:12:01who would've looked up and seen this very, very grand house -
0:12:01 > 0:12:03- one of the grandest houses in Wales...- That's right.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05- ..lit up in the night...- Exactly.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08..when they were living in one-up one-down.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Living in one-up one-down and working in very hard conditions.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24Crawshay and his fellow iron barons amassed huge wealth
0:12:24 > 0:12:26and created temples to industry.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35In the middle of another Penry Williams painting
0:12:35 > 0:12:39are the extraordinary Bute Ironworks in the Rhymney Valley.
0:12:39 > 0:12:41An amazing building with chimneys
0:12:41 > 0:12:45inspired by the Dendera Temple of the Upper Nile.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49Just think - an Egyptian temple in the South Wales Valleys!
0:12:57 > 0:13:01There's nothing left of the Egyptian extravaganza
0:13:01 > 0:13:05and many of the old ironworks are ruins now...
0:13:05 > 0:13:07arches and towers that only hint at
0:13:07 > 0:13:09the power and noise they once generated.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14Tucked away in a scrap yard is an old factory
0:13:14 > 0:13:18that doesn't look much now, but was once an industrial marvel.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28By the middle of the 19th century, South Wales was fast becoming
0:13:28 > 0:13:31the engine room of Britain's Industrial Revolution.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37Ironworks and coalmines
0:13:37 > 0:13:40were springing up right across the Valleys.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46It's difficult to imagine the scale of these works now.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48Only ruins remain.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51The Crawshays' tin-plate works, just outside Treforest,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54is one of the most complete.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58It's still in the metal business, but selling scrap now.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02When it was built in 1835,
0:14:02 > 0:14:05it was the largest tin-plate works in the world,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08supplying metal across the Empire
0:14:08 > 0:14:09and also to the USA.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17Like the ironworks in Merthyr, it was recorded in popular prints,
0:14:17 > 0:14:20but there's one important thing missing from them.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27Being in this extraordinary building,
0:14:27 > 0:14:30you can see why artists were so attracted
0:14:30 > 0:14:32to the new industrial enterprises -
0:14:32 > 0:14:35the ironworks and the foundries and the tinworks.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37I mean, look at this picture.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41The drama of that light coming out of the blast furnaces in the night.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44The people - the men and women who made the wealth -
0:14:44 > 0:14:46they're very small,
0:14:46 > 0:14:48very difficult to see them.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50But there is one collection of paintings
0:14:50 > 0:14:52where you can actually see their faces.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00A series of remarkable portraits of the men
0:15:00 > 0:15:04who worked in the Treforest factory has recently come to light.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09These 16 tiny paintings, now at the National Museum in Cardiff,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12give us a glimpse of the early industrial workers.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16Beth, these are very unusual paintings, aren't they,
0:15:16 > 0:15:18from the mid-1830s?
0:15:18 > 0:15:20Yes. They're a wonderful group that we have.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22We have a selection here - there are in fact 16.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27They're all paintings showing the workers of Francis Crawshay.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30And they're all shown in this very distinctive style
0:15:30 > 0:15:33set in a landscape mainly with a sky behind.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36And we think they're by the artist William Jones Chapman -
0:15:36 > 0:15:40he's an artisan artist - but they're only attributed to him at the moment.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45They're all named and identified. So we have some skilled workers,
0:15:45 > 0:15:47we have some unskilled workers,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50we have managers. And they're quite extraordinary because they show them,
0:15:50 > 0:15:52as you can see, as individuals.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56And he captures the character and the facial features of each worker.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59No women, I should mention as well, in the group -
0:15:59 > 0:16:01all 16 are male workers.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06- This is a manager here.- Yes, this is John Davies. He's the tin manager.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08And I think you can see the difference really with the clothes.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10He's obviously not hands-on.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13You can feel him as a person, I think that comes across very much,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16and that's quite unusual for workers to be depicted in this way.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Oh, yeah, great care has been taken.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22The faces have been beautifully painted
0:16:22 > 0:16:24- and very sympathetically painted, haven't they?- Yes.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27They're all identified as well. So we know, for instance,
0:16:27 > 0:16:29that this is William James and that he was a roller.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31He's here, pictured with the tools of his trade.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34So, you know, he's taking pride in his job.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37It gives him real dignity, which is quite right, of course,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40because these were the people who created the wealth.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43Indeed. They were very important to the owners.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46They needed their workers to continue to make the money.
0:16:47 > 0:16:50But these portraits only tell half the story.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55Conditions in the Crawshays' iron and tin-plate works
0:16:55 > 0:16:58were harsh and dangerous.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Just four years before they were painted,
0:17:01 > 0:17:03the workers were pushed to breaking point.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09This is one of the bedrooms of Cyfarthfa Castle -
0:17:09 > 0:17:13the former mansion of the Crawshays.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15They weren't popular.
0:17:15 > 0:17:20In 1831, the workers of Merthyr rose up
0:17:20 > 0:17:23against the poverty and starvation they were suffering.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26The red flag was unfurled for the first time.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30The rising was put down brutally.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32And one man, Dic Penderyn,
0:17:32 > 0:17:35was taken to Cardiff and hanged -
0:17:35 > 0:17:38allegedly because he was the leader of the rising.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44At the time, there was no visual record of the Merthyr Rising
0:17:44 > 0:17:46or of the conditions the workers were protesting about.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50The iron barons didn't want the hard reality
0:17:50 > 0:17:53of industrial South Wales to be seen.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00Occasionally, artists did look at the ordinary people of the Valleys.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03Tip girls were paid to carry coal
0:18:03 > 0:18:07and ashes from the iron foundries.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10And Thomas probably wanted to...
0:18:10 > 0:18:13portray the harshness of their lives.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16But this is such a romantic image
0:18:16 > 0:18:19that she might've been carrying a Greek urn.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24But historian Elin Jones has her own theory about the painting.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27The title "Sackcloth and Ashes",
0:18:27 > 0:18:29I thought it referred to the shame of these women
0:18:29 > 0:18:32earning their bread by the sweat of their brow.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34But in fact it refers to society's shame
0:18:34 > 0:18:37that women are still earning their living in this way,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40comparatively late in the 19th century.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42And when this was painted,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45would it have been commissioned to make that message?
0:18:45 > 0:18:47I don't know. Was it commissioned
0:18:47 > 0:18:48or was it the artist painted it himself?
0:18:48 > 0:18:51He was a very evangelical Christian
0:18:51 > 0:18:56with strong views about the role of women in society,
0:18:56 > 0:18:57and he did think it was shameful
0:18:57 > 0:19:00that women be employed in hard labour outside the home.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03So it's quite possible that he was inspired,
0:19:03 > 0:19:05trained by the classical images,
0:19:05 > 0:19:09but portraying what he thought was a social problem
0:19:09 > 0:19:11of society not giving women
0:19:11 > 0:19:14their proper place and their proper dignity.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19Recently a collection of portraits
0:19:19 > 0:19:22has emerged from the shadows of history
0:19:22 > 0:19:25that show women in the Valleys as they really were.
0:19:25 > 0:19:29This time through a new medium - photography.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Elin, who are these photographs of exactly?
0:19:33 > 0:19:36These are photographs, taken in about 1865,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39of women in the ironworks in Tredegar.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41Taken by a local photographer.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44And what is special about these pictures
0:19:44 > 0:19:46is that they are very, very rare.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49There aren't very many pictures of workers.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52There are very few pictures of women workers taken, it seems,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55some of them actually in the works.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58This one seems to have a stone wall behind her.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02Some of them seem to be more shot in a studio, like this one here.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05But they are very immediate,
0:20:05 > 0:20:07they are very detailed,
0:20:07 > 0:20:11and show us all the sort of sense of hard labour
0:20:11 > 0:20:14that these women were doing. These women were working
0:20:14 > 0:20:17in physical work in the ironworks.
0:20:17 > 0:20:23How would people in 1865 have felt about women working in ironworks,
0:20:23 > 0:20:24and coalmines, and so on?
0:20:24 > 0:20:30They would probably have been viewed as rough, tough women.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32"Common" as my grandmother would say.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36She was born in 1878 and she'd a very strong view about common women.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40She would've been shocked, for example,
0:20:40 > 0:20:42to see these women wearing trousers.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45- That is very rare.- A shocking image!
0:20:45 > 0:20:46Shocking, shocking image
0:20:46 > 0:20:49because they are wearing trousers that show their...
0:20:49 > 0:20:52well, the shape of their legs above the knee, Kim!
0:20:52 > 0:20:53Above the knee.
0:20:53 > 0:20:55And they're wearing these aprons.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58These people were really the lowest of the low.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04These women workers in Tredegar
0:21:04 > 0:21:08were part of a massive social change in the Valleys.
0:21:12 > 0:21:13The mines, and the ironworks,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16and the railways were hungry for workers.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19And the massive inward migration
0:21:19 > 0:21:21transformed these valleys
0:21:21 > 0:21:24and created this now famous iconography
0:21:24 > 0:21:27of rows of terraced houses
0:21:27 > 0:21:29stacked up the hillsides,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32squeezed between the mines at the bottom of the Valleys
0:21:32 > 0:21:35and the wildernesses on the top.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41But the life for this new population was grim,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46with tens of thousands squeezed into rapidly built pit villages,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50working underground in coalmines fraught with danger.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53There emerged a passion for change
0:21:53 > 0:21:55and the people who came to work in the Valleys
0:21:55 > 0:21:58were amongst the most radicalised in the world.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Coming from across Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom,
0:22:02 > 0:22:05they soon joined together in chapels and trade unions.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07At the heart of every community
0:22:07 > 0:22:10was the Welfare Hall or Miners' Institute.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13The coal industry was booming
0:22:13 > 0:22:15but wages and conditions weren't improving.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19Workers organised themselves into trade unions,
0:22:19 > 0:22:21and buildings like this
0:22:21 > 0:22:25were raised by subscription from their meagre earnings.
0:22:28 > 0:22:31But life in these tough Valleys communities
0:22:31 > 0:22:33wasn't portrayed by painters.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37The art that celebrated the coming of industry to the Valleys
0:22:37 > 0:22:40didn't show the realities of life there.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44The only pictorial record of this time
0:22:44 > 0:22:48is in newspaper and magazine illustrations
0:22:48 > 0:22:51often showing the aftermath of the all too frequent
0:22:51 > 0:22:53pit disasters.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57But one pioneering cartoonist in Wales
0:22:57 > 0:23:00gives a remarkable insight
0:23:00 > 0:23:01into how these turbulent times
0:23:01 > 0:23:04were represented in the popular press.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08His name - Joseph Morewood Staniforth.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13So, Chris, what is this book of cartoons?
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Well, JM Staniforth was the cartoonist
0:23:15 > 0:23:18for the Western Mail and the Evening Express,
0:23:18 > 0:23:19in Cardiff,
0:23:19 > 0:23:24and he drew cartoons throughout the six-month dispute in 1898.
0:23:24 > 0:23:25At the end of it, the Western Mail
0:23:25 > 0:23:28published them as a separate pamphlet for thruppence.
0:23:28 > 0:23:33So these are really the only visual record of a very important strike.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36Yeah. I mean, this is pre-photography in newspapers.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38So you've got people who are sketch artists,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41and then you've got these cartoons which are acts of interpretation.
0:23:41 > 0:23:46Every day, he is drawing something, following the dispute's progress,
0:23:46 > 0:23:49responding to the things that are cropping up and the changing public
0:23:49 > 0:23:52attitudes around the positions of the miners and the mine owners.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54But as the politics of the coalfield changes,
0:23:54 > 0:23:59so does Staniforth's depiction of South Wales coal miners.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01It does. What you have here, 1898,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04you have a collier who is respectable,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07solid, hard-working, knows his place in society.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Somebody who's deserving of some measure of respect.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Later on - we've got one here 11 years on -
0:24:13 > 0:24:16you've got a collier who is much less comfortable.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19He is threatening, he's more animalistic.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21And I think that transition
0:24:21 > 0:24:24represents increasing concern on the part of the cartoonist
0:24:24 > 0:24:26and possibly, therefore, by society at large,
0:24:26 > 0:24:28over what was happening in the coalfield.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30And how many people would have seen these images?
0:24:30 > 0:24:34The Western Mail's got a circulation of approaching 100,000 at this time.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36He was also drawing for the News Of The World,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39so he was reaching possibly over a million people
0:24:39 > 0:24:40by the early 20th century.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44And, in a way, that's how South Wales got known, then?
0:24:44 > 0:24:45Yeah, South Wales was, of course,
0:24:45 > 0:24:49the home of the South Wales coal industry, it was the hub of the...
0:24:49 > 0:24:52you know, the economic hub of the British Empire, as it were.
0:24:52 > 0:24:53It powered the Royal Navy.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55All of Britain's greatness could be predicated
0:24:55 > 0:24:57on what was going on in South Wales.
0:24:57 > 0:24:59So, these cartoons must have been one of the ways
0:24:59 > 0:25:01in which people actually discovered the Valleys.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03I suppose so,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06because people didn't travel to the Valleys as tourist areas.
0:25:06 > 0:25:07These were places of some mystery,
0:25:07 > 0:25:11didn't necessarily encounter miners going about their daily business.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14There were relatively few photographs of works of art
0:25:14 > 0:25:16that represented the mining valleys.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18Cartoons, however, were appearing in daily newspapers
0:25:18 > 0:25:21and conveying something through imagery
0:25:21 > 0:25:22of what these societies were like.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30Another glimpse of the protests in the Valleys
0:25:30 > 0:25:33from the early years of the 20th century
0:25:33 > 0:25:36comes from an extraordinary set of photographs.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40A photographer in Tonypandy, Levi Ladd,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44took pictures of striking miners meeting there in 1910,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47just before their violent confrontation with the police.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52The fragile glass plate negatives were mostly lost,
0:25:52 > 0:25:54but a handful have survived
0:25:54 > 0:25:58and give us a vivid image of the politics of this time.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13The years around the First World War
0:26:13 > 0:26:17saw peak production in the South Wales coalfield.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20Out of the tens of thousands of people working,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23there emerged a new generation of artists.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27For the first time since Penry Williams in Merthyr,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31they'd grown up alongside the colliers and their families.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34Trained at Swansea School of Art,
0:26:34 > 0:26:38they brought a new realism to the portrayal of this industrial world.
0:26:41 > 0:26:47Evan Walters was the oldest, and in the 1920s and early 1930s
0:26:47 > 0:26:50he painted a series of images of coal miners
0:26:50 > 0:26:52that still impress today.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56Not widely known, they're rare portraits of working men,
0:26:56 > 0:27:00painted with a deep understanding of who they were
0:27:00 > 0:27:02and the conditions they faced.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07The portraits date from the year of the general strike onwards.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11They show men pinched by hunger
0:27:11 > 0:27:15as the Great Depression brought desperate poverty to the Valleys.
0:27:22 > 0:27:28Chris, after the First World War, of course, the coal industry crashed.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31- Yeah.- The demand for coal is dropping dramatically.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33Yeah, particularly in South Wales.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37You've got new industries like oil and electricity coming through.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40You've got a lot of competition in the export market,
0:27:40 > 0:27:41and so South Wales coal,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45which had been really, you know, top quality, is now struggling.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48It's high price and they're finding it difficult to shift.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51What that means is that you get mines beginning to close
0:27:51 > 0:27:53and large numbers of miners being laid off.
0:27:53 > 0:27:54And within ten years, you know,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58you're looking at a really serious unemployment problem in South Wales.
0:27:58 > 0:27:59But it's also the time, isn't it,
0:27:59 > 0:28:04when artists start to try to reflect this pain in their own work?
0:28:04 > 0:28:07Well, you've got an artist like Evan Walters, for instance,
0:28:07 > 0:28:09who starts to paint portraits
0:28:09 > 0:28:12in the South Wales coalfield in the mid-1920s.
0:28:12 > 0:28:13So, this is at a point
0:28:13 > 0:28:16when the industry is really struggling for its very existence
0:28:16 > 0:28:18and so are the communities.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20You know, you've got the general strike,
0:28:20 > 0:28:22you've got the seven-month-long lock-out of 1926.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26And then widespread unemployment comes hard on the heels of that.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30And what you've got with those portraits are real miners.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32These are real people living in South Wales
0:28:32 > 0:28:35who've experienced that kind of human tragedy.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37You know, their whole raison d'etre has disappeared
0:28:37 > 0:28:39because the industry has shrunk
0:28:39 > 0:28:42and they no longer have the means of making a living.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45And I think you can see that the tragedy, it's written in the art.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49These people are real examples of this economic catastrophe.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51And artists weren't just painting portraits.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55- They were also painting the reality of mining.- Yeah.
0:28:55 > 0:28:57I mean, somebody like Vincent Evans,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00the paintings that he does of miners underground, working,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03you get a real strong sense of the physicality of that labour.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06It's not brought out in any other way at that time, I think,
0:29:06 > 0:29:08except perhaps through works of literature
0:29:08 > 0:29:10like George Orwell's Road To Wigan Pier.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12You get a sense of the muscles,
0:29:12 > 0:29:15the sweat, the pain, the claustrophobic environment.
0:29:15 > 0:29:18So, for miners in work, the work itself hadn't changed very much
0:29:18 > 0:29:21from the late Victorian, Edwardian period.
0:29:21 > 0:29:23And that's captured in those paintings.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25And were those paintings regarded
0:29:25 > 0:29:28as proper things to go into art galleries at the time?
0:29:28 > 0:29:30Well, I think there's a struggle there.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33You know, in a sense, industrial art is still trying to find its way
0:29:33 > 0:29:37in the artistic environment of the early 20th century.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40And that's why so many of these painters have to find other subjects
0:29:40 > 0:29:42to make their careers through.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48These were hard years in the South Wales Valleys,
0:29:48 > 0:29:54with colliery closures, mass unemployment and near starvation.
0:29:54 > 0:29:55Few pictures show this,
0:29:55 > 0:29:58but a painting by another Swansea student,
0:29:58 > 0:30:01Archie Rhys Griffiths, catches the mood.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08Griffiths has his blackened automatons approaching the viewer
0:30:08 > 0:30:12from a valley whose hills are more grey than green,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15beneath a sky that promises bad weather.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31Radicalism and socialism continued to grow.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34Mardy, at the head of the Rhondda Valley,
0:30:34 > 0:30:38was dubbed Little Moscow in 1930.
0:30:38 > 0:30:41Evan Walters' painting The Communist,
0:30:41 > 0:30:44depicts this political world.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48Here's the orator decked out in a bright red shirt,
0:30:48 > 0:30:50exhorting the masses to revolution.
0:30:53 > 0:30:55Walters never wrote about this painting,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58so we don't know if it's in support of the communist
0:30:58 > 0:31:01or if it's supposed to be satirising him.
0:31:11 > 0:31:14Those paintings of the 1920s and '30s
0:31:14 > 0:31:16became symbols of the struggle
0:31:16 > 0:31:20against the worst aspects of capitalism.
0:31:20 > 0:31:25They attracted to the Valleys artists, writers and film-makers
0:31:25 > 0:31:28who took those images out to the wider world.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35Two European artists came to the Valleys during the war
0:31:35 > 0:31:37and were highly influential.
0:31:37 > 0:31:39Both were Jewish.
0:31:39 > 0:31:41Josef Herman from Poland.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44And Heinz Koppel from Germany.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48They never met, even though they worked at the same time.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54One promoted an image of the dignified miner.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01The second helped usher in the idea
0:32:01 > 0:32:03of the Valleys as an imaginative dreamscape.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22Josef Herman became celebrated for his portraits of Welsh miners.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26He was inspired by a vision of men
0:32:26 > 0:32:29returning home from the pit in Ystradgynlais
0:32:29 > 0:32:31silhouetted against the sunset.
0:32:35 > 0:32:37Herman lived in the village
0:32:37 > 0:32:40and went underground to sketch the men at work.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43His fame grew
0:32:43 > 0:32:45after he painted a huge mural of miners
0:32:45 > 0:32:48for the Festival of Britain in 1951.
0:32:50 > 0:32:55These sculpted figures, influenced by African carvings,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58became some of the best known images of the Welsh Valleys.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16I think for Josef Herman, coal mining was...
0:33:16 > 0:33:18what he referred to as dignified labour.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20You know, he saw it as being
0:33:20 > 0:33:22real men's work,
0:33:22 > 0:33:26producing something real that was a commodity
0:33:26 > 0:33:28that was going to get sold
0:33:28 > 0:33:30And it was hard labour.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33And there was something that he really valued in that.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42He'd grown up in a Warsaw ghetto
0:33:42 > 0:33:44with his whole family living in one room
0:33:44 > 0:33:46and his father working as a cobbler.
0:33:46 > 0:33:48This was a completely different idea,
0:33:48 > 0:33:50that you'd see these miners coming out of the sunset
0:33:50 > 0:33:53and crossing the bridge and going off down the pit.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56And he saw the sort of masculinity and the power of that,
0:33:56 > 0:33:59but he also saw it in a slightly romantic way
0:33:59 > 0:34:01as the wealth being brought up from under the earth.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03The fires being burnt with it.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06You know, it's something about nature being expressed.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09Rock underneath our feet being brought to the surface.
0:34:09 > 0:34:11So, there was a sort of timeless energy
0:34:11 > 0:34:13that he felt was in that whole story.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28He was deeply moved
0:34:28 > 0:34:31by the quality he found in that community and the landscape,
0:34:31 > 0:34:33and desperately wanted to start painting it,
0:34:33 > 0:34:35and stayed for a decade.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39Heinz Koppel lived in Dowlais near Merthyr
0:34:39 > 0:34:42and while he was less well known than Herman,
0:34:42 > 0:34:46his influence on art in the Valleys was also profound.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49He was teaching unemployed miners, kids,
0:34:49 > 0:34:50anybody who wanted to come along
0:34:50 > 0:34:52and see what they'd make
0:34:52 > 0:34:54of this new style of painting that he was teaching,
0:34:54 > 0:34:55this sort of self-expression.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59And the students at Cardiff College of Art who lived in the Rhondda
0:34:59 > 0:35:01and went down on the train every day,
0:35:01 > 0:35:03the Rhondda Group, as they became known,
0:35:03 > 0:35:06they all found out about him and they went up to see him.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10And their experience of sort of suddenly coming across somebody
0:35:10 > 0:35:12that they regarded as a real artist,
0:35:12 > 0:35:15who'd got a real set of enquiries about how to paint,
0:35:15 > 0:35:17really excited them.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19These are artists who are finding new ways of seeing the world.
0:35:19 > 0:35:23They're not just regurgitating the same kind of landscape view,
0:35:23 > 0:35:25a little still life, you know, some safe scene.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27They are saying, "How do we see the world?
0:35:27 > 0:35:30"What can we do differently from people in the past?"
0:35:30 > 0:35:34One of the things that Heinz Koppel used to say to his students is,
0:35:34 > 0:35:36"How would a child see it?
0:35:36 > 0:35:38"Try and see it absolutely from basics.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41"Try and go back to basics in what you do."
0:35:41 > 0:35:44And people need help to go back to basics sometimes,
0:35:44 > 0:35:46and both Herman and Koppel, I think,
0:35:46 > 0:35:50were seen as people who could help throw out
0:35:50 > 0:35:52some of the baggage of art and start fresh.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57Josef Herman's paintings of miners
0:35:57 > 0:36:00reflected a new confidence in the post-war years.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06These men were no longer the downtrodden figures
0:36:06 > 0:36:09of Evan Walters and Archie Rhys Griffiths,
0:36:09 > 0:36:11but symbols of a new world.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24Everything changed in 1945. A Labour Government was elected.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27The mines were nationalised. The NHS was created.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30Even old pits like this one in this banner of Mardy,
0:36:30 > 0:36:33these were rebuilt, reconstructed.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37There was a tremendous new sense of optimism in the Valleys.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56When I grew up in the Valleys in the 1950s,
0:36:56 > 0:36:58there was full employment
0:36:58 > 0:37:02and a tremendous sense of optimism everywhere.
0:37:02 > 0:37:04We were open to all kinds of influences.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07We were reading the novels of Jack Kerouac
0:37:07 > 0:37:10and looking at abstract expressionist painters in America
0:37:10 > 0:37:12like Jackson Pollock.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17And there were young artists in these communities in this valley,
0:37:17 > 0:37:20and they were trying to reflect the world around them.
0:37:20 > 0:37:22But they were painting in a new way.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28Young Valleys artists
0:37:28 > 0:37:31like Ernest Zobole, Robert Thomas and Charles Burton
0:37:31 > 0:37:34were part of this post-war generation
0:37:34 > 0:37:38entering art college for the first time.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41They no longer painted scenes of industry
0:37:41 > 0:37:46but streets brimming with shoppers, lively paintings in bright colours.
0:37:46 > 0:37:50Gwyn Evans is one of the last survivors of this group.
0:37:52 > 0:37:53Well, it is optimistic.
0:37:53 > 0:37:55Of course, it coincided
0:37:55 > 0:37:59with us younger people who, naturally, would have optimism.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01We were going to change the world.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04But that air of optimism was strong.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07We never thought of ourselves as making history.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09We were just a group of committed people
0:38:09 > 0:38:12and one thing we wanted to do was paint.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15We revelled in the sort of whole atmosphere of the Rhondda.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17It was in our bones.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22Every stone glowed, and it drove us on to paint and record what we saw.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25Because a lot of the art that was being produced
0:38:25 > 0:38:29was like a sophisticated art, whereas ours was raw.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32We went out and we met on a Saturday morning
0:38:32 > 0:38:34and we did different areas of the Rhondda.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36One morning, we'd meet in Treherbert.
0:38:36 > 0:38:38It might be below freezing.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42I can remember sitting in a stream, my feet on the blocks of ice,
0:38:42 > 0:38:44and drawing away.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46And then we'd retire to a cafe -
0:38:46 > 0:38:48Dom's was the favourite in Treorchy -
0:38:48 > 0:38:50and discuss what we'd done.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53And it was usually quite a serious hour or two.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57People were looking to the future, they were looking to make a new world
0:38:57 > 0:38:58after that Labour Government
0:38:58 > 0:39:00really turned so many things upside down and said,
0:39:00 > 0:39:03"Let's start again in a different way."
0:39:03 > 0:39:06And I think that if you look at those paintings by Charles Burton,
0:39:06 > 0:39:08the early Ernie Zobole paintings,
0:39:08 > 0:39:09the Glyn Morgan, too,
0:39:09 > 0:39:12they're expressing quite an optimistic view of the Valleys.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14You know, you're seeing tidy places
0:39:14 > 0:39:15in both senses of the word.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17You're seeing order
0:39:17 > 0:39:20and attractive rural landscapes around the community.
0:39:20 > 0:39:24And, really, that was the truth that people were seeing around them.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26They weren't seeing poverty and destitution,
0:39:26 > 0:39:27which might well have been the picture
0:39:27 > 0:39:29had they been painting in the '30s.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32They were seeing a regulated, harmonious world.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42It wasn't only men who grasped the possibility of the new age.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46Nan Youngman, an English artist and teacher,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49set up a scheme to show art in Welsh schools,
0:39:49 > 0:39:52and painted a series of evocative streetscapes.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59Cardiff-born Esther Grainger
0:39:59 > 0:40:02was also inspired by the landscape and its people,
0:40:02 > 0:40:06painting this austere portrait of a miner's wife,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08Con Morgan, in the 1950s.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16Perhaps the most singular vision of the Valleys came from Ernest Zobole.
0:40:16 > 0:40:18The son of Italian immigrants,
0:40:18 > 0:40:21he went to art college after national service.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25But the Valleys, and specifically Ystrad Rhondda and Penrhys,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28became his artistic universe.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35When he went away to teach in North Wales in the mid-1950s,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37he struggled to paint,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40needing the landscape of his home to spur him on.
0:40:48 > 0:40:54As his work matured, Zobole created his own iconography of the Valleys.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58Often seen at night, his paintings show streets and houses
0:40:58 > 0:41:01clinging to the sides of the hills,
0:41:01 > 0:41:06streetlamps and car headlights illuminating this nocturnal world
0:41:06 > 0:41:08with the artist himself looking on.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27I think all of those artists who came from the Valleys
0:41:27 > 0:41:31saw it as important to show their own home and express that.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33And they were in love with their own home,
0:41:33 > 0:41:35and I think that comes through very strongly
0:41:35 > 0:41:37in the warmth of the paintings.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39Koppel and Herman, they were in love with it as well,
0:41:39 > 0:41:42but even coming as outsiders, yes,
0:41:42 > 0:41:46they did really express their feelings for the places they were.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49When you look at the geography of it
0:41:49 > 0:41:53and the amazing placing together of rows and rows of houses,
0:41:53 > 0:41:55with mountains behind them,
0:41:55 > 0:41:57you know, it was an amazing picture,
0:41:57 > 0:41:59and so many artists coming together here
0:41:59 > 0:42:02just found it a place full of visual excitement.
0:42:13 > 0:42:20But in the 1960s and 1970s, the Valleys faced grimmer realities.
0:42:20 > 0:42:24The Aberfan disaster of 1966,
0:42:24 > 0:42:27when a coal tip collapsed on top of a primary school,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31killing 116 children and 28 adults,
0:42:31 > 0:42:34was like a curse that returned,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37a ghost from earlier in the century
0:42:37 > 0:42:39when accidents were tragically common.
0:42:43 > 0:42:48The disaster was commemorated in this painting by Nicholas Evans.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Evans was a kind of Valleys Grandma Moses,
0:42:51 > 0:42:54who only took up painting in his 60s
0:42:54 > 0:42:57and whose work of monochrome miners
0:42:57 > 0:43:01captures the gloom and desperation of his youth underground.
0:43:01 > 0:43:03His Aberfan painting
0:43:03 > 0:43:07gets something of the grief that followed this terrible tragedy.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24If the bright new future of the post-war era was fading,
0:43:24 > 0:43:28the mystique of the mines continued to draw artists
0:43:28 > 0:43:31like moths to the flame of a miner's lamp.
0:43:31 > 0:43:33Valerie Ganz is a Swansea painter,
0:43:33 > 0:43:37and although the Valleys were just a few miles away,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40they remained a hidden world to her
0:43:40 > 0:43:44until she began sketching there in the mid-1980s.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47Now, these sketchbooks are so wonderful.
0:43:47 > 0:43:49When did you first go down a mine?
0:43:49 > 0:43:55I think it was about 1982, and I worked in a private mine,
0:43:55 > 0:43:57a drift mine.
0:43:57 > 0:44:00Was it the sculptural qualities, the drama,
0:44:00 > 0:44:03the special light that attracted you to the mines?
0:44:03 > 0:44:05I don't really know.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08It was the fact that it was almost like a forbidden place,
0:44:08 > 0:44:12and I've always wanted to go to places I'm not supposed to go to.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16Of course, you went to the most forbidden place for a woman.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20- Oh, yes.- And that's into the baths where the men were actually washing.
0:44:20 > 0:44:26I mean, you've got the wet skin, the white tiles and the reflections
0:44:26 > 0:44:28and colours of the towels and things.
0:44:28 > 0:44:29It was a beautiful subject.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33These are incredible life drawings.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36- But, I mean, there are full frontals in here, Valerie.- Oh, yes.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39- And the men didn't mind?- No.
0:44:39 > 0:44:40- Not at all?- No.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43It says something about coal miners in South Wales, doesn't it?
0:44:43 > 0:44:47Well, I mean, I'm so used to drawing people without their clothes on
0:44:47 > 0:44:49that it didn't make any difference.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58In fact, I was in the little road next to the mine one day
0:44:58 > 0:45:01and along came a lorry,
0:45:01 > 0:45:05and the men called out to me and I answered.
0:45:05 > 0:45:07But I didn't recognise him.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09He said, "Ah, you don't know me with my clothes on!"
0:45:09 > 0:45:11HE LAUGHS
0:45:11 > 0:45:12Great!
0:45:20 > 0:45:24You actually went to live, of course, in a mining community,
0:45:24 > 0:45:26- right next to the mine in Abertillery.- I did.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28And how did you begin to paint that?
0:45:28 > 0:45:30How did you get that sense of community?
0:45:30 > 0:45:32How do you translate that onto a canvas?
0:45:32 > 0:45:35Observation and sketchbooks.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37And I'd go to their choir practice
0:45:37 > 0:45:42and their band practice and snooker halls and so forth,
0:45:42 > 0:45:45and they were very happy to let me do what I liked.
0:45:45 > 0:45:47They were really good about it,
0:45:47 > 0:45:49and, as much as one was able to,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52I became part of that community,
0:45:52 > 0:45:54and they were really welcoming.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56It was a lovely atmosphere.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08But the world that Valerie Ganz painted was soon to change.
0:46:15 > 0:46:20The long post-war boom ended for the Valleys in the late 1970s.
0:46:20 > 0:46:22The demand for coal and steel
0:46:22 > 0:46:26began to decline catastrophically.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29The coal industry was heading for a momentous strike.
0:46:40 > 0:46:43I was working for the National Union of Mineworkers
0:46:43 > 0:46:46during the 1984-1985 strike.
0:46:46 > 0:46:49It's an experience etched on my memory,
0:46:49 > 0:46:51but little-recorded by artists.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Photography and film are the main documents of the time.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58All of these images and posters,
0:46:58 > 0:47:03these were all designed during the miners' strike of 1984-1985,
0:47:03 > 0:47:07by the miners - in fact, I designed some of them myself.
0:47:07 > 0:47:10But, you know, the extraordinary thing is
0:47:10 > 0:47:12that there was very little art
0:47:12 > 0:47:15created by artists about the strike at the time.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19But there was a rich vein of creativity
0:47:19 > 0:47:20that came after the strike.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25The end of the strike in 1985
0:47:25 > 0:47:29saw the rapid closure of the coal mines and steelworks
0:47:29 > 0:47:31which had defined the Valleys
0:47:31 > 0:47:33for so many people for so long.
0:47:34 > 0:47:3730 years later, little remains
0:47:37 > 0:47:39of these industrial powerhouses.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44Tower Colliery at Hirwaun was one of the last,
0:47:44 > 0:47:46taken over by the miners
0:47:46 > 0:47:48and staying open until 2008.
0:47:49 > 0:47:51It remains empty and decaying,
0:47:51 > 0:47:55a memory of generations of men who worked underground.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02Hidden away, there's a mural by one of the miners themselves -
0:48:02 > 0:48:04an anonymous personal statement
0:48:04 > 0:48:07about 150 years of work at the site.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23But the passing of these industries
0:48:23 > 0:48:24has inspired some artists
0:48:24 > 0:48:28who find subject matter in the struggles of the past.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36Various artists in different ways
0:48:36 > 0:48:40have shown the Valleys emerging from the closure of the mines.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44David Carpanini was born here in Blaengwynfi in the Afan Valley,
0:48:44 > 0:48:46north of Port Talbot.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49For 50 years, he's been portraying the people of this village
0:48:49 > 0:48:51as stubborn survivors.
0:48:59 > 0:49:01This picture is very important to you, isn't it?
0:49:01 > 0:49:03Well, indeed. As a subject
0:49:03 > 0:49:06it's something that has recurred many times in my work.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09It contains the house where I grew up
0:49:09 > 0:49:10from the age of nine months,
0:49:10 > 0:49:13and the path here
0:49:13 > 0:49:15behind that building,
0:49:15 > 0:49:18I walked many, many times,
0:49:18 > 0:49:20and it is a dramatic view,
0:49:20 > 0:49:23it is an extraordinary visual pattern
0:49:23 > 0:49:25of folding forms and rhythms
0:49:25 > 0:49:28that I saw almost every day of my life.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31Clearly, things have changed over 50 years,
0:49:31 > 0:49:33but nonetheless, it was a dynamic,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36recurring, powerful symbol
0:49:36 > 0:49:39of a working, dynamic community.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43And it's firmly embedded in my psyche,
0:49:43 > 0:49:46I don't think there's any question about that.
0:49:46 > 0:49:48Clearly, I'm also doing a good deal of work,
0:49:48 > 0:49:51in more recent times, from my memory
0:49:51 > 0:49:54because, as you can see, it has changed quite significantly.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58But the excitement of one's engagement, from a child,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01with the experience of growing up here,
0:50:01 > 0:50:03I once described as like growing up
0:50:03 > 0:50:06in a fine Renaissance city, like Florence.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08Clearly, I don't have a Piero della Francesca in my local church,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11but I did have, every day of my life,
0:50:11 > 0:50:13a changing visual spectacle
0:50:13 > 0:50:17that I have constantly found
0:50:17 > 0:50:19extraordinarily stimulating.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22- And you've never forgotten the people, have you?- No, no.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24Well, again, that's the other issue as well.
0:50:24 > 0:50:26Although much of my work is about pure landscape,
0:50:26 > 0:50:28the majority of my work
0:50:28 > 0:50:31is about people in situations.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34And they are, as I've heard you say before, survivors.
0:50:34 > 0:50:35They're very resilient people,
0:50:35 > 0:50:39and often you find the situation where people are...
0:50:39 > 0:50:42I hope this comes across in some of my paintings...
0:50:42 > 0:50:44They're not just about South Wales,
0:50:44 > 0:50:46they are about...
0:50:46 > 0:50:50a broader perspective of human experience,
0:50:50 > 0:50:52where anyone, in difficult circumstances,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55has found a way to survive.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13David Garner also deals in the fallout from the pit closures.
0:51:13 > 0:51:14The son of a miner,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17he uses the remnants of industry to make art -
0:51:17 > 0:51:22miners' boots, donkey jackets are his raw materials.
0:51:22 > 0:51:24All of this stuff is about coal mining.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27Why do you produce art about coal mining?
0:51:27 > 0:51:31Well, it's the background I came from, you know.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34My dad was a miner for 50 years
0:51:34 > 0:51:36and I grew up in a mining... Community mining village,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39in a place called Aberbargoed.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41Came out of college, Royal College,
0:51:41 > 0:51:45and straight into the miners' strike, '84-'85 miners' strike,
0:51:45 > 0:51:49and started to produce work which reflected what was going on.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52Now, this piece here is an incredibly...
0:51:52 > 0:51:55intensely personal piece of work,
0:51:55 > 0:51:57because this is about your dad, isn't it?
0:51:57 > 0:51:59Yeah, this is very personal.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03My dad died of pneumoconiosis
0:52:03 > 0:52:05and I made this piece when he died.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08It's called Do Not Go Gentle,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11which is an obvious reference to the Dylan Thomas poem.
0:52:11 > 0:52:12That fight for life,
0:52:12 > 0:52:17and also that fight for recognition and compensation
0:52:17 > 0:52:19for the cause of death.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22And that X-ray is actually his X-ray
0:52:22 > 0:52:24that you got from the hospital.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27It's an X-ray from Caerphilly Miners',
0:52:27 > 0:52:29which I eventually managed to get from them.
0:52:29 > 0:52:31They were very reluctant to release it,
0:52:31 > 0:52:33but, yes, it's the actual X-ray, yeah.
0:52:37 > 0:52:39And this is actually his jacket?
0:52:39 > 0:52:42The majority of the work I make which incorporates found objects,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45they have to be authentic, they have to be the real thing.
0:52:45 > 0:52:47There's kind of no compromise there at all.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51So, you know, the jacket is his, the X-ray is his.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54- And his nebuliser. - The nebuliser, yeah.
0:52:54 > 0:52:56That authenticity is so important, really.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17And this piece is about
0:53:17 > 0:53:19one of the worst things that ever happened in Wales.
0:53:19 > 0:53:21Yeah, Aberfan, '66.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25I was in primary school, eight years old. Remember it happening, vividly.
0:53:25 > 0:53:30And these objects as well, of course, these are from 1966.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33They're very old primary-school chairs, which I managed to source,
0:53:33 > 0:53:3630 of them, you know, to represent the class.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39And what I did, I cast coal and bitumen wedges
0:53:39 > 0:53:41to sit on 30 primary-school chairs.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45And the idea came from a photograph I saw,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49where the spillage just came in through a school window in Aberfan
0:53:49 > 0:53:52and just settled on a desk and chair.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54And I saw that image and that gave me the idea.
0:53:54 > 0:53:56Because of the nature of the bitumen -
0:53:56 > 0:53:58over time, it moves,
0:53:58 > 0:54:00which was fantastic, really,
0:54:00 > 0:54:01for the narrative of Aberfan, really.
0:54:08 > 0:54:14It's something that people who might not be part of that art elite,
0:54:14 > 0:54:15that audience...
0:54:15 > 0:54:18they don't have to have a special language to understand it, do they?
0:54:18 > 0:54:20No, they don't. Erm...
0:54:20 > 0:54:24That's something I'm always conscious of as well, you know.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27Again, it might come from my background.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29I like the person next door to me
0:54:29 > 0:54:31to be able to read something into the work.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35You're not going to be able to read all the subtleties and the detail,
0:54:35 > 0:54:37but I would like somebody in my street
0:54:37 > 0:54:41to be able to look at the work and think, yeah, that's about Aberfan,
0:54:41 > 0:54:43or that's about...whatever, you know.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46I like ordinary people to be...
0:54:46 > 0:54:48To be part of the audience, really.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59David Garner, like David Carpanini, is deeply concerned
0:54:59 > 0:55:03with the devastating after-effects of industry.
0:55:03 > 0:55:05But there are other artistic views of the Valleys
0:55:05 > 0:55:07which are equally powerful.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13Kevin Sinnott lives and works in the Garw Valley.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17One of the most popular contemporary Welsh artists,
0:55:17 > 0:55:21his figure paintings are full of dynamism and colour,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25with people out in the streets and up on the hills.
0:55:35 > 0:55:39To me, he captures the vitality of the Valleys better than anyone.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42Paintings which celebrate the humour and panache
0:55:42 > 0:55:46of the people who live and love in these towns and villages.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00Another artist with a distinct vision is John Selway,
0:56:00 > 0:56:04who's painted in Abertillery for over 60 years.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12Selway studied alongside David Hockney
0:56:12 > 0:56:15at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s,
0:56:15 > 0:56:19and his work has developed into a rich, magic-realist style.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25Selway draws on music and poetry,
0:56:25 > 0:56:29and his sinewy forms seem to envelop you.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33Even when they're not directly about the landscape where he lives,
0:56:33 > 0:56:36they could only have been painted in these steep-sided valleys
0:56:36 > 0:56:38where the sky is far above.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48In this programme, I've looked at how the history of the Valleys
0:56:48 > 0:56:50and the art that's been made there
0:56:50 > 0:56:51are closely connected.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57But perhaps the powerful presence of the past,
0:56:57 > 0:56:59especially the industrial past,
0:56:59 > 0:57:02has now become too dominant.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06Over the past decade or so,
0:57:06 > 0:57:09there's been a tendency to memorialise
0:57:09 > 0:57:12the suffering of the Valleys.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15Monumental sculptures erected on the site of pit disasters
0:57:15 > 0:57:17and closed collieries.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20In a way, it's understandable.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23The mines were closed and demolished so quickly
0:57:23 > 0:57:27that the older generation wants to pass on what's been lost.
0:57:27 > 0:57:32But sometimes history hangs over the Valleys like a shroud.
0:57:37 > 0:57:39But people love living in the Valleys,
0:57:39 > 0:57:43and they're beginning to regain the natural splendour
0:57:43 > 0:57:45that attracted artists like Turner
0:57:45 > 0:57:47in the 18th century.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52I'm sure, and I hope, that this beautiful landscape
0:57:52 > 0:57:55will now inspire a new generation of artists
0:57:55 > 0:57:59to create their own contemporary visions of the Valleys.