大象传媒

Presenter Kim Howells and Barry Plumber discuss the merits of three of Walters' portraits showing coal miners which were painted in 1926 and 1931. The first portrait, The Welsh Collier (1926), is of William Hopkin, a distant relative and friend of Walters, painted during the lock-out of the 1926 miners' strike. This collier would not have been earning a wage at the time. He is not a well-looking man and has what could be described as a fierce look in his eyes. The second portrait, The Welsh Collier (1931), is of another miner known to Walters - a collier at the end of a shift. He has a different facial expression from the miner in the first portrait - a much more relaxed expression showing a collier in work, with the distinctive pink lips and whites of the eyes accentuating the grime of the coal dust on his face. Howells suggests that the third portrait, The Convalescent Miner, is possibly the most intriguing - with a thoughtful look, again not of a well-looking miner locked-out during the 1926 strike. These portraits show Walters' wonderful technique, which is quite different from what was being painted elsewhere in south Wales and Britain at the time.