Nicholas Evans - Pilgrim & Painter
Last updated: 13 June 2010
This week's All Things Considered reflects on one of the most distinctive artists Wales has produced.
Nicholas Evans was in his late sixties before he began painting seriously - in his bedroom in Aberdare. The astonishing outpouring of skill and passion which followed was all the more remarkable because he had received no formal training. He had his first exhibition at 71 to widespread critical acclaim, and since then his work has been seen across the land. All of it reflecting his twin passions - coal mining and the Christian faith. His unique style of painting, using his fingers and rags in subdued blacks, whites and blues, portrays colliers in the claustrophobic conditions he'd known himself as a pitboy.
Nicholas Evans died in 2004 at the age of 96, and a few days ago Roy Jenkins, along with art historian Professor John Harvey, went to the Swansea Valley to meet his two sons, Victor and Peter, themselves now in their seventies. At Peter's home on the hills above Ystradgynlais, they talked about their father with affection and humour as they looked back over his life and work.
Entombed - Jesus in the Midst by Nicholas Evans. (c) Trustees of the Nicholas Evans Estate
This edition of All Things Considered will be broadcast on Sunday, 13 June 2010 at 8.30am and repeated on Thursday 17 June at 5.30am.
Related links
Related books:
"Symphonies in Black" by Rhoda Evans.
ISBN-10: 0862431352
ISBN-13: 978-0862431358
"Image of the Invisible: Visualisation of Religion in the Welsh Nonconformist Tradition" by John Harvey. University of Wales Press.
ISBN-10: 0708314759
ISBN-13: 978-0708314753
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