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