Art Collections Online

Miners singing

HERMAN, Josef (1911 - 2000)

Miners singing

Date: 1950-51

Media: oil and crayon on essex board with plaster ground

Size: 43.5 x 121.6 cm

Acquired: 1992; Purchase

Accession Number: NMW A 1674

A refugee from Poland, Herman spent the decade 1944-54 in Ystradgynlais where he painted his best-known works of mining themes. This is a study for his greatest painting, the monumental Miners, executed for the Pavillion of Minerals of the Island at the 1951 Festival of Britain. The artist began with the figure with an upraised arm at the left, only subsequently making narrative sense of its pose by incorporating it with a group of singers.

Comments (1)

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John Mayers
2 February 2009, 08:37
I loved this picture when I first saw it around 2002. The Museum kindly arranged to make a print for me. Now framed it has pride of place above the fireplace. Singing before the start of a shift must have happened underground and more so at the time of the Evan Roberts Revival in 1904.
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