80 years ago today….
Month: November 2023
Geoffrey Olsen
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the birth of the influential painter Geoffrey Olsen.
Born Geoffrey Robert Olsen in Merthyr Tydfil on 4 November 1943. He was a pupil at Cyfarthfa Grammar School, and later attended Newport College of Art, the West of England College of Art, Cardiff College of Art and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before teaching in Oxfordshire. In 1978 he joined Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) where he lectured in art and design and became Principal Lecturer in the Visual Arts. From 1997 to 2001 he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art.
Olsen exhibited widely from the 1970s including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Wales, the National Library of Wales, the British School in Rome and Florida International University. His work was also included in a number of group exhibitions, including “Painting the Dragon” at the National Museum of Wales, the “Wales Drawing Biennale 2000” at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, the 1992 National Eisteddfod of Wales in Aberystwyth, the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Ikon Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, the Corcoran Museum of Art and other locations in Europe and the US.
Olsen’s artwork uses abstracted geographical forms and memory from the places he knew best, including Merthyr Tydfil, the Cotswolds, Rome, Florence and Miami. Together with painting, during his later life in Miami, he also worked on producing books in collaboration with the writer Jerome Fletcher using both hyper-text and conventional narratives.
Poet, art historian and critic Tony Curtis described his collaborative artist book with the bookbinder David Sellars, as “one of the outstanding artists’ books of recent years”. The book combined images of Florence alongside those of Merthyr Tydfil, using laser prints, screen-printing and acrylic paint on Khādī paper.
On retirement from Oxford Brookes he began a particularly fruitful period: he took up the post of Artist in Residence at Florida International University in Miami in 1996 and there responded to the very different light and landscape with the series The Miami Wall-Paintings (1996-97), and a new collaborative approach to book production, both in a conventional form and using hyper-text narratives with the writer Jerome Fletcher. In 1999 he was granted an Abbey Award in Painting at the British School in Rome. He returned to Florida to teach on the MFA course in Visual Arts.
Diagnosed with leukaemia in 2003, he continued to paint until his death in Gloucester 6 December 2007.
*I am unable to include copies of any of Geoffrey Olsen’s works as they are copyrighted. You can, however, see a number of them here….
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/olsen-geoffrey-robert-19432007
New Pithead Baths for Treharris
by Laura Bray
It was 90 years ago (1st November 1933) that the new pithead baths at the Ocean Colliery (Deep Navigation) in Treharris were opened, at a cost of £20,000 paid for by the Miners’ Welfare Committee. The baths replaced those first opened in 1916 – the first pithead baths in the country.
It is hard at this remove to appreciate what a radical effect the pithead baths had on miners and their families. Imagine coming off a long shift underground, caked in coal-dust, mine-water and sweat and then getting yourself as clean as you can in a tin bath, which you wife had hauled in front of the fire and filled. See her steeping over and around children underfoot, carrying hot water in big, heavy jugs, water sloshing over the rim. Indeed, one South Wales coroner claimed that he conducted more inquests into the deaths of children who were scalded than he did into miners who were killed underground.
And then emptying the tin bath outside, carrying it through the house. Imagine the coal dust that wasn’t shaken off, settling around the house, like sand, getting into every nook and cranny. Imagine having to wash those clothes, by hand, and hanging them to dry over the fire. And this is your life day, after day. Miners themselves were prone to rheumatism, pneumonia and other respiratory conditions; the women, to back-breaking and heavy work, often leading to miscarriages or premature births.
Now move your mind forward to 1916: you, a miner in Treharris, are able to use the first pithead bath in Britain. Now you have proper changing and washing facilities; you go home clean. Your wife now longer has to cope with the dirt from the pit, no longer has to fill the bath. You are both heathier, your children less at risk of injury. Can you imagine the difference that made?
It took 30 years of campaigning to get pithead baths into every colliery but in 1926 the Mining Industry Act allowed for a “Royalties Welfare Levy” of 1 shilling in the pound, paid to the Miners’ Welfare Fund, which was instructed by the fact to make provision for the baths. From 1921 to 1952, over 400 baths were built across Britain. The Miners’ Welfare Committee’s own architects’ department established the most cost-effective way of constructing, equipping and operating baths buildings and by the 1930s, a ‘house style’ had developed, based on the ‘International Modern Movement’ of architectural design, which used flat roofs, clean lines and the plentiful glass, to give a natural light and airy feel.
The new pithead baths opening in Treharris in November 1933, are described as being 145 x 96 feet, built of red brick and able to accommodate 1824 men. Each man had 2 separate lockers, one for clean clothes and one for dirty, and a jet of hot air was passed through lockers to dry the clothes, wet towels etc. The baths boasted 112 cubicles, in white glazed brick, with adjustable-temperature showers, mirrors and electricity. The building also housed a first aid room, boot cleaning machine, drinking fountains and “lavatory accommodation”.
The opening was a prestigious event, attended by the great and good of the Borough, including the manager of the Deep Navigation Mine, the Director of the Ocean Coal Company, the Mayor, Aldermen and a crowd of 100s, of which about half were women. It is noted that they were the 18th baths to be built in South Wales, and the 121st nationwide, with another 35 in construction. The speeches acknowledged the difference the baths made to the community and particularly to the ladies, as the baths “stood for cleaner homes and a higher standard of life”. It is interesting that the speeches were directed at the women, who should use their influence to get their men to patronise the baths; and that the men, if they had any regard for their wives, would do so. As if to reinforce the message, the baths were opened to public viewing before they were put into use. So clearly, there was reluctance in some quarters still, to use them, despite baths having been available for 20 years.
The Miners’ Welfare Committee retained responsibility or the pithead baths until the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947, when its remit passed to the National Coal Board.
The baths in Treharris are long gone now, but if you want to see a example of the pithead baths today, the one in Big Pit in Blaenavon is open, and is worth a visit, standing as a testimony to a revolution in colliers’ lives.