Not everyone from South Wales realises what an extraordinary place it is. Waves of industrialisation over the centuries have given it an utterly distinctive landscape and society. These landscapes are the narrative of a human project often at the epicentre of profound social change.
Now, all this has been put into reverse. Mines have closed down and heavy industry simply swept away. Trees are returning to the valleys. This distinctive landscape, formed by industry, is becoming lost. These ‘lost landscapes’ and ghost towns are monuments to the faceless labourer and are of enormous significance and value for future generations as a world cultural heritage, but their recognition as such is still in its infancy.
George Little is a rare chronicler of these changes. He is absorbed by the dereliction of abandoned industrial sites which he has witnessed since childhood then studied and recorded since the 1950’s.
His painting does not prettify the dereliction which has overtaken so much of the industrial landscape. Indeed he makes no concession to those buyers who believe pictures must be pretty or uplifting. But neither does he offer up any sense of depression or sentimental nostalgia.
He is acutely aware of how quickly these changes are taking place. Once, on returning to a disused steelworks to add to sketches he had made just weeks before, he found it had completely disappeared.
George Little was born in 1927 in Danygraig, Swansea where his earliest visual memories were of looking down on the then constantly busy docks full of ships, with their multicoloured smoke stacks, and the dockside, bristling with coal hoists, cranes, engines, wagons, sheds, buoys and capstans. Then the docks were vibrant with coal from the local mines being exported around the world.
He witnessed the destruction of the Blitz when the city burned and the docks were attacked. In the post war years he recorded the collapse of heavy industry and he has documented this transformation with a poet’s eye. In a landscape of urban decay he has found startling colours, musical rhythms and a haunting sense of human presence and of past endeavour.
George Little attended Swansea College of Art followed by post graduate studies at the University of Oxford where he won several prizes. He has had eighteen solo exhibitions across the UK, and many two-man shows and has received numerous awards and prizes for his work. He lives in Swansea.
Dr Elizabeth Bloxam, archaeologist at University College, London, and formerly of Attic Gallery writes:
Described as unimpressive, vulnerable and neglected, formed by mining and industry from antiquity into the modern age, are these perhaps the most forgotten landscapes of our time? Yet, these ‘lost landscapes’ are the narrative of a human project often at the epicentre of profound social change. Harnessing and procuring the natural resources of Wales have led to unsurpassed transformations of the landscape, particularly due to coal mining, in which human innovation and technological ‘world firsts’ of global significance were played out. Blaenavon or Big Pit is one such landscape that was centre-stage in the Industrial Revolution. Visualised as a bleak industrial landscape of mundane features, yet recently recognised as a World Heritage Site, this transformed landscape was the arena in which the human experience of industrialisation led to the beginnings of urbanisation.
These ‘lost landscapes’ and ghost towns are monuments to the faceless labourer which are of enormous significance and value for future generations as a world cultural heritage, but their recognition as such is still in its infancy.
George Little - A poet of change
by Robert MacDonald
“I have one of George Little’s paintings hanging by the front door of my cottage in the Brecon Beacons. Its subject is a scene of urban dereliction. It is a picture of a ruined ironworks showing broken walls and collapsed roofscapes. One might think this an unsuitable picture to put by the door of a country cottage in one of the most unspoilt parts of Wales. Standing in front of it, my eye takes in not only George’s watercolour but also the view outside the door of my wild garden. At present it is bright with runner bean flowers, lilies, roses and a variegated mixture of wild and cultivated plants. Strangely enough the George Little painting does not clash with this vista at all. With its warm rich colours and harmonious shapes the painting complements the view and adds a beauty of its own.
This is the wonderful thing about George’s work as an artist. In a landscape of urban decay he finds startling colours, musical rhythms and a haunting sense of human presence and of past endeavour. He has an eye for shapes and harmonies and for dramatic contrasts. His painting does not prettify the dereliction which has overtaken so much of the industrial landscape. But neither does it offer up any sense of depression or sentimental nostalgia. There is life in the ruins as there is life in a tangled garden. George records the beauty of change. His subject is the world he has known since his childhood in Swansea, when he could look down from his home on to the docks with cranes, ships and warehouses busy with life. He witnessed the destruction of the Blitz and the collapse of heavy industry in the post-war years. And he has documented this industrial landscape and its transformations with a poet’s eye.
This world of industrial endeavour and technical and scientific enterprise which has surrounded him since his earliest years has left its mark. He somehow combines the poet’s eye with a talent for scientific observation. When I visited his home recently he showed me the many sketchbooks which he takes with him wherever he goes. They are filled with spare and precisely delineated images of the world around him. They are a visual diary of his travels but also a lesson to any artist on how to be both lyrical and scientific - how to capture the moment with dramatic simplicity and how to use technical skill to memorialise a vanished way of life.”
There were 68 works in the exhibition - here is a selection: (all sold) |
