Evan Walters Rolf on Welsh Art

I'm on a wonderful Welsh adventure as I discover more

about four outstanding artists influenced by this great land.

During the series, as a tribute to them,

I'll be creating drawings and paintings inspired by their art.

I'm going to have create in ways I've never done before.

And when it's all finished, I'll probably turn to you

and I'll say, "Can you tell what it is yet?"

I'm on a trail of a great Welsh artist

who would have been right at home here

rubbing shoulders with the nation's working man.

He would've lapped up all these images of people and dogs,

he would've been observing, sketching, painting in oils

the Welsh working man at play,

and recording it as a sort of a snapshot in time.

Here they come again, second lap.

But the artist I'm talking about was more than just

a painter of the Welsh working class.

He also invented an amazing new style of art that, sadly,

was rubbished by the art world at the time.

This little known painter of people

may have died in relative obscurity over 60-odd years ago,

but today his revolutionary art is wowing all people keen on 3D.

75 years ago he was painting in 3D.

His name - Swansea-born artist Evan Walters.

But what do I mean by 3D?

Well, in Walters' remarkable paintings he captured exactly what

each of his eyes was seeing on one canvas, merging both the elements,

to see something in 3D, just like you would in the cinema.

Look at the bed-knobs in this portrait of his mother.

That's exactly what each eye saw when Walters painted it.

And in this self-portrait too,

there are double images of things all over the place.

But if I'm going to paint a half decent tribute to Walters,

I've got to sort this 3D conundrum out.

Before experimenting with his amazing 3D art,

Walters earned his money as a jobbing street artist

at the dog track, selling sketches for just a bob a time.

A good start for any budding artist.

Oh, look, I like that. I think that's great.

Wow. That's amazing.

Evan Walters was best known for his magnificent portraits of miners.

In his heyday, he was recognised

as one of the greatest portrait painters of his generation.

So why have most people never heard of him?

Well, at the height of his popularity

Walters gave up his traditional portraits

for his obsession with the revolutionary 3D style,

which he called double vision.

Now, look closely at his portrait Cockle Woman.

You can see double vision elements shining through with

the two images of the one bottle.

Today, this is one of Wales' most loved and revered paintings

but at the time the art world ridiculed him.

That led Walters to a complete breakdown.

I need to find out why.

So I'm heading off on a journey around Wales

in my very own Rolfmobile.

If I'm going to produce a half-decent tribute painting to him,

I need to unpick the real Evan Walters story.

I've got to experience the places

and meet the people that inspired this young and talented artist.

First stop, where it all began, a small mining town near Swansea.

Evan John Walters was born here in the Welcome Inn

in the tiny mining town of Mynyddbach,

within the sight and sound of Llangyfelach colliery.

The big pithead, of course, is long gone, but when he was growing up

it was so close to his bedroom that he woke to the sounds

of the miners trudging past on their way to work in the colliery.

In one of his earliest paintings,

Walters captured the Llangyfelach colliery pithead

in a lovely little painting

that shows his love for the mining community all around him.

To help me get my tribute painting going,

I'm off to Aberystwyth to corner someone

who just might help me bring Walters' character to life.

This man knows all about Walters and the benefactors who knew him best.

He has scoured the archives and assembled a virtual treasure trove

of Walters memorabilia and some of his best paintings.

The man? Art historian Peter Lord.

-Aha, the man himself.

-Yeah, I'm here.

Watch the railway track, don't break your neck on that.

OK. Where does that go? Right round the mountain?

-Right round the mountain.

-Peter, nice to see you.

And you. Come in. Come into the big room.

Oh, wow, oh, oh. Wow. Oh, gosh, that's lovely.

Tell me about that.

That's Winifred. Winifred Coombe Tennant.

This is Evan Walters' great patron.

And their relationship as patron and painter spanned 30 years.

What kind of a relationship did he have with Winifred Coombe Tennant?

It was a very close relationship.

She saw his 1920 exhibition in the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea.

She saw the exhibition, was really powerfully affected by it.

She bought three paintings and she commissioned portraits

of herself and then ultimately other members of her family as well.

And she really was not only his patron in a financial sense,

but she was his mentor as well.

Over here we can see it in...in the book.

There she is as a young woman. She's in her prime really.

She's a very attractive woman.

And the process of painting this picture is recorded in her diaries.

She kept a diary every day between 1896 and 1956, she kept it.

And it's lovely, the diary, because you get her very emotional reaction

to what's going on, to the process of the painting.

Winifred says that,

"Today, Evan Walters began to work at my picture in a black mood...

"staring, intent and displeased glances at my face, and painting."

But, you know, the relationship is so close and the detailed entries

in the diary describing Walters' state of mind

and what exactly what he's doing, and her joy at his success

in the London exhibition in 1927, I mean, she's overjoyed about it.

It was Winifred's commissions to paint her

and her family that kept him afloat.

After watching him painting once, she wrote,

"This young man has it. I believe in his genius."

With Winifred's financial support,

Walters could now focus on painting and portraying

the hardship of local miners at the time of the General Strike.

When these moving portraits were shown in London,

they created a sensation, and Walters became an overnight success.

But despite his fame, Walters never forget his close bond

with the mining communities of South Wales.

I really need to experience the sweat and toil of the common man,

just like Walters did, in probably the noblest but,

at the time, the most dangerous profession in Wales, coal mining.

All of the deep pits in Wales have long gone,

but I've arranged to meet the real heroes who still work underground,

but nowadays with tourists rather than pick and shovel,

the miners of the Big Pit Museum in Blaenavon.

ALL: Morning, Rolf!

How are you?

A pleasure. Thank you very much.

-Bore da.

-Bore da.

I'll show you some of the paintings he did.

I mean, he did some cracking ones. That's a miner recuperating.

-It just shows how tough life was.

-Yeah.

You can see how haggard the guy is.

This next one is him coming out of the pit all covered in coal dust.

First thing you do, if you're a smoker,

is to get your cigarette out.

-On the top here, because underground, bang.

-Oof.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

I like a pinch of snuff. Now, this is a powder, yeah.

Powdered tobacco.

And what it was now, just a little bit, see, not too much.

Get your two fingers together.

You're going to have me coughing and sneezing.

-No, no, no. It's all right.

-It's fresh.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

-What happens, now your nose starts to run.

-Yeah.

And you blow your nose,

and a slab of snot hits the floor that you can light a fire with.

THEY LAUGH

This is a picture that Evan Walters did of one of the miners.

Yeah, when I first started in the pit,

I'll never forget the faces of some of the miners.

How haggard their faces are, were,

from working so hard in the dust, or working in water.

Arthritis, rheumatism, all these things are against the miner.

One of the miners told me about a human tragedy he'd experienced

when he was just a young boy,

how coal dust had led to the premature death of his grandfather.

I don't mind telling you, I was really moved by his story.

It reminded me of the physical hardship my own family knew

all too well.

Thank you very much, OK.

He was nine and they wouldn't let him

into the hospital to see his old grandad...

on his...

Oh, dear.

..on his deathbed.

Oh, dear.

All cutched in?

It all came flooding back, my own family ties to Wales

and the danger my dad had faced in Australia

trying to earn a decent living.

It also reminded me of an old emotional song

I know about a mining tragedy.

It's called Rap 'Er Te Bank.

I just had to share with these warm and remarkable people.

# As he went by you'd hear him cry Do you know it's after four o'clock?

# But still amongst the clatter he'd cry rap 'er te bank

# My canny lad, wind her right slow, that's clever

# This poor old lad has taken bad

# I'll be back here never. #

-Very good.

-Excellent. Excellent, well done.

-Well done.

-Brings back a few memories.

Just a cable come off, and here we go, OK.

After discovering all about the miners' hardships,

I began to realise what Walters saw in their faces

and what inspired him to try and capture their dignity and sacrifice.

Right, I've made up my mind, I've got to represent

the Welsh working class in my tribute painting.

Now, surprisingly, at the height of Walters' popularity,

his career took a sudden dive into obscurity.

I've heard that there was one major life-changing event

that turned him away from his traditional portraits for ever.

I had to find out more. Next stop, Cardiff.

In 1935, a group of Welsh artists and wealthy patrons

organised an exhibition of contemporary Welsh art

designed to celebrate the nation's achievements.

Well, everyone knew Walters was too famous to be ignored

but they only allowed him to show just a couple of his paintings.

The art at the exhibition was specially chosen to promote

the fluffy romance of picturesque Welsh landscapes,

the sort of experience you can have today

at St Fagan's National History Museum.

There was no trace of Walters' gritty working class art to be found.

Walters was devastated by the snub.

He dismissed the exhibition as "English art, by Welsh artists".

But like all great painters, he was determined to bounce back,

and he did it in style, with a brilliant and revolutionary

form of art that came to Walters like a bolt out of the blue.

'I met up with art historian and Walters specialist Barry Plummer,

'who's fascinated by his change in style and this flash of inspiration

'that came to Walters in, of all places, his mother's kitchen.'

So tell us about this bolt from the blue that struck Evan Walters.

Well, it's quite well known in the Evan Walters story that in 1936,

by that period, his art had suffered somewhat,

he'd been through a depressing period from about 1930 to 1935,

and this bolt from the blue come about

when he was in his mother's house in Llangyfelach in 1936.

Sitting in front of the fire, like we're doing today,

and he had his legs crossed.

He could see, looking at his foot, his foot was double.

He must have been looking at the fire, focusing on the fire.

Yeah, I'd imagine he must have been, yes.

And then you get two images of the feet.

Now, it's the same sort of phenomenon

if you put your finger in front of your nose, you can see it double,

you can see through it, you can see sort of peripheral vision.

But your focus is on that near point.

How unique was this idea? Were there any other artists doing it?

Well, he was THE first artist to take it any further.

Everybody thought he was completely crazy.

And he got some pretty bad reviews.

I think he really felt that he was onto something,

and he sort of sacrificed his career to do it.

That's what it came down to.

'I was amazed to hear all about Walters' discovery

'in front of the fire.

'I just had to experience some Walters' double vision paintings

'up close and personal.

'So I asked Barry to jump in the Rolfmobile and we sped off to

'the depths of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff for a quick gander.'

Ah, boy.

I would have thought the brush strokes would have gone diagonally.

But they're all horizontal. What's that all about?

Well, he had this idea that the eye moves easier

across horizontal planes rather than vertical planes.

It's almost like a tapestry effect.

How were Walters' double vision paintings received at the time?

Very poorly, unfortunately.

I mean, he had a show in 1936,

where he put 22 of these works up in a gallery in Bond Street.

Didn't sell one. Not one.

And most of these works that you see now here are from that time.

He didn't sell them.

So when he died, he had 395 paintings in his studio.

How many?

395. Which came here to the National Gallery.

HE LAUGHS

Oh, boy, isn't that good?

It's one of his great paintings, I think.

It sort of typifies everything he was about.

Everything concentrates into those eyes.

If you go from that blurry vision through to the focus on the face,

you go beyond that and the doorways in the back,

and so it's like he's central and they go into two as well.

Yes.

-So you've got that out-of-focus thing at the back.

-Yeah.

'While I was at the museum there was one special

'Walters' double vision painting I had to see.

'It's always guaranteed to draw the crowds.

'It's a wonderfully intimate and inspirational portrait

'that captures another iconic Welsh industry.'

The Cockle Woman, painted in 1939,

when I was a carefree kid in Western Australia, by the way.

But I think it's the greatest

and best known of Evan Walters' paintings.

This painting has a special place in the hearts of the Welsh nation,

they love it.

You see the horizontal lines here on the face,

and down there almost like a tapestry.

And then you see these two bottles here,

it's like one bottle which is separated in two, and the same thing

with the two bowls here, slightly out of focus in the background.

I'm going to attempt my own double vision painting

of The Cockle Woman in honour of a great painter.

So I headed to Swansea Market, famous for its Penclawdd cockles,

to paint a portrait of my very own Cockle Woman who has

a history of Welsh cockle picking coursing through her veins.

Today, Carol and her sister Jo carry on the family tradition

and not even a new family arrival has got in the way of her customers

getting their hands on her tasty cockles.

I was selling cockles here on the Saturday,

my daughter was born the following Friday.

Got three children and six grandchildren.

-They all help out here, my nephews and nieces, they all help.

-Lovely.

'Carol's wearing her grandmother's traditional cockle picking outfit

'in honour of her family's proud legacy.

'Doesn't she look great?'

I've got to work out what this background is going to be like.

Gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh.

Well, I've done a rough start

I'm going to be focusing on Carol the same way that Evan Walters

tried to do it and tried so successfully to do it.

I'm going to get some sort of features in there.

Eyebrow line there, and another eyebrow line coming up there.

'I've just noticed. Can you see that?

'When my eyes focus on Carol's face,

'the picture frames in the background become double,

'just like I saw in Walters' original painting.

'Her face is all in focus whereas the bowl and the bottle

'are now double and blurred as well.

'I'm finally discovering how to paint exactly what both eyes see.

'Looking at the double images of the frame, I realise that

'it's as if Evan Walters was painting in an early 3D style.

'If my tribute painting is going to succeed,

'I need to unpick a Walters original painting and see

'if it might help me capture more of what my eyes are really seeing.'

Keep smiling, Carol.

# Keep smiling through

# Just like you used to do... #

'People these days are mad about 3D, so could local art college

'use some Rolf techno wizardry

'and take the elements of a classic Walters' painting

'like his Self Portrait With Candle, and make it come alive?'

I hope to experience a fantastic Evan Walters 2D painting in 3D,

seeing it the way he saw it when he painted it.

HE CHUCKLES

2D art in 3D. Wow, that's a first.

But what we hope to do is enable you to see it at home,

without the use of these glasses,

on your own television set in Rolf's wobble vision.

HE BEATS RHYTHMICALLY

HE CHUCKLES

Stop mucking about, Rolf.

I went to meet the animation tutors and students

of the Atrium at the University of Glamorgan.

They've got a terrific reputation and a hell of a show reel.

I can show you a couple of examples of 3D work.

Oh, wow!

Isn't it incredible to look at?

It's coming right out at you, flat.

Oh, I'm not sure I like him much, who's that guy?

Picking his teeth.

But this fellow is so up close,

he's a good couple of feet away from that screen.

And this is done on a computer program?

Yes, it is.

Now, in that program can you decide which bit's going to be

in focus and which bit's going to be behind

and which bit's going to be in front?

-We can pull focus on it. We control that.

-That's amazing.

'I'm hoping they'll be able to peel apart each layer

'of an Evan Walters double vision picture and show it to me on their 3D TV.'

Evan Walters, the Swansea painter,

halfway through his career he decided to try and cope with

double vision and three dimensions, as it were, on a flat canvas.

See, what he's done here, he's got the central figure in perfect focus,

and then the stuff that's in front of him has gone whoof, like that.

Now, I'm wondering

if there's any way that you could put that into three dimensions.

Can you tackle it?

-Yeah.

-It's a challenge.

-Yeah, it is.

-It's a good challenge.

-We can take it on.

-Are you serious?

-Yes.

-Can you do that?

You'll be seeing it as he saw it as well,

that's the most exciting thing.

Be very interesting to do.

'I'll let them get on with that little conundrum

'and pop back a bit later.

'I truly love Walters' double vision art,

'but sadly for Walters, at the time the art world just mocked him.

'One critic said,

'"I think the double vision was due to

'"an actual physical defect of his eyes

'"and the muscles had been pulled or moved out of their proper place."

'That's so sad.

'Even his lifelong supporter Winifred Coombe Tennant

'thought he'd lost his the plot.

'She wrote in her diaries, "Though a fine painter,

'"he works little and is going to seed. I am so sorry."

'After the art world failed to embrace his double vision paintings,

'Walters became deeply depressed and spent some time in hospital.'

It's starting to look a bit like you there.

I think it's going to work. Yeah. Goes through that bit.

I see, and then that comes to a stop there on that double vision.

I've been trying to concentrate on just looking at it with two eyes,

but both eyes focusing on Carol here,

so that these two things

are totally out of focus and have moved in the foreground.

And it's very tricky.

I've got something like the idea of it happening there.

'Despite his double vision art being lambasted by the critics,

'Walters persisted with his new creative idea.

'For the rest of his life,

'he continued his passion for double vision paintings,

'trying to capture exactly what the human eye was really experiencing.

'Evan Walters died of a heart attack in 1951 in London.

'He was 58 years old.

'He never gained recognition for his trailblazing art.

'That's truly tragic.

'But there is one way we can recognise his talent

'and show exactly how far ahead of his time Evan Walters really was.

'I'm on my way back to see if the animators at the Atrium

'can show me a Walters' double vision painting in all its 3D glory.'

-Glasses on.

-Glasses on.

HE GASPS

At the moment I'm afraid you can't see

what I'm seeing on this 3D TV, but wow!

I'm finally observing exactly what Walters saw when he painted it.

Remarkable.

It's absolutely terrific. The accuracy is just incredible.

Have you seen any other artists who've tackled this?

No, not this way at all.

'That's really made my day, seeing that.

'Now, I promised you earlier, I've thought of a novel way

'you can see it on your normal TV at home

'using Rolf's very own Wobble Vision.'

So, Jason, is it possible to see the Wobble Vision with the...

-Yes, yes.

-..those two, the left, the left eye

and the right eye images sort of jumping back and forth.

-There we go.

-Oh, wow.

So you see the background jumping and you see the foreground jumping.

-Yeah.

-And the mirror image jump.

'It's great to finally see it.

'The doors behind, and only one candle reflected in a mirror

'that Walters was looking through.

'Incredible.'

HE BEATS RHYTHMICALLY

# Evan Walters Wibble-wobble wibble-wobble... #

There's a song coming on there, Rolf.

What I find really spooky and amazing is that back in 1936

he was recreating something that we now make with electronic media today.

-Yes.

-And he had it right back then.

-Yes.

-That's what's amazing.

'It's a real Rolf On Welsh Art first.

'I hope you enjoyed that.

'Final proof that Walters was truly an artist ahead of his time.'

I've got to get the double vision of the two little bits here.

Do you want to come round and have a look?

It's amazing.

'I've really enjoyed painting my tribute to the talented

'Evan Walters, and I've had the time of my life at Swansea Market

'with Carol and her cockles.'

Oh, well done.

Thank you, thank you so much for this.

-Thank you, thank you, thank you.

-I wasn't ready.

THEY LAUGH

That's better.

'But I must confess I'm finding this tribute painting a tough challenge.

'I'm not totally happy with my first go at it.

'I need to get the double vision right and it's not quite working,

'so I'm heading home to my studio to add some final finishing touches.'

Well, I've done a lot of changing since I finished in Swansea.

I've got this double vision thing

and I've made that a double vision picture

so that you get the edge of the frame there.

Then I've taken the two helpers in the background and you can see

that I've started to move another image of them out here,

with another hand there and another arm,

and you get more hair coming out there.

It's all blurry.

I must say, I've really enjoyed painting my tribute

to the great and talented Evan Walters.

I'm only sad that it's taken so long,

so many years after his death,

before the accolades that he so richly deserves

for his revolutionary art are now finally being heaped upon him.

I just hope he's up there somewhere looking down on us

and enjoying my tribute to him, Evan Walters,

the great working class artist from Llangyfelach, in Swansea.

It only remains for me to sign it now, and it's all finished.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd