GEORGE CHAPMAN (1908 - 1993)
George Chapman was born in London and trained there at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal College of Art. His early influences included Sickert and the Euston Road School. However, a visit to the Rhondda in 1953 made a huge impression on him, and was to transform his vision of himself as an artist. His subsequent paintings of the industrial valleys saw him achieve great critical and commercial success with sell-out exhibitions in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was awarded the Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod in 1957 and took up permanent residence in Aberaeron, Ceredigion in 1964.
From the late 1960s to the early 1990s Chapman's work became unfashionable, and it was only after his death in 1993 that his reputation underwent a major revival. His paintings of the Rhondda are now regarded as an important record of an industrial landscape and community that has all but disappeared.
Collections
Bradford City Art Gallery
Brunswick Art Gallery, Canada
Clare College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
King’s College, Cambridge
Ceredigion Museum, Aberystwyth
Contemporary Art Society for Wales
Essex County Council
Fry Art Gallery Society, Saffron Walden
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery,Swansea
Greater London Council
Hampshire County Council
Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
St. Anne’s College, Oxford
Corpus ChristiCollege, Oxford
Oxfordshire County Council
Stockport Ar tGallery
The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Welsh Arts Council
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester