Ernest Zobole

Ernest Zobole (25 April 1927 – 27 November 1999) was a Welsh painter and art teacher. Born to Italian immigrant parents in Ystrad, Rhondda, he is known for paintings of the industrial Rhondda Valleys. Zobole was a founding member of the Rhondda Group and the 56 Group Wales. After military service and a teaching career that included positions across Wales, he spent most of his life in his birthplace of Ystrad.

Early life and education Ernest Zobole was born in the village of Ystrad, Rhondda, Wales, on 25 April 1927, to Italian immigrants who had moved to Wales in 1910. His father worked at the local pit doing surface work, whilst his mother kept a small shop.

His time at Cardiff College was notable for the daily commute from the Valleys to Cardiff, as it was used as an opportunity for Zobole and five fellow students to discuss and critique their art work. The group was taught by Joan Baker, who taught at Cardiff for nearly 40 years and was deeply concerned with depicting urban life.

Although the six artists - Zobole, Charles Burton, Glyn Morgan, Nigel Flower, David Mainwaring and Robert Thomas - never set up a school or published a manifesto, they became known as the Rhondda Group

As an artist

As a student in 1952, Zobole became acquainted with Heinz Koppel, the German expressionist refugee artist who had a studio in Dowlais. Zobole admired artists who, like him, "weren't imprisoned by perspective", specifically mentioning Marc Chagall, Ceri Richards, Stanley Spencer and the early Italian Masters. He began using impasto, mainly applied with a palette knife.

From 1963 to 1984 he became a painting lecturer at Newport Art School. The University of South Wales holds over one hundred paintings and numerous works on paper by Zobole, representing "the single largest and most representative body of his work".

Zobole showed in many group exhibitions, including Howard Roberts Gallery in Cardiff, Dillwyn Gallery in Swansea, South Wales Group, Welsh Arts Council, and the Royal National Eisteddfod.

Solo exhibitions included Newport Museum & Art Gallery (1986), Ceri Richards Gallery at the University College of Wales, Swansea (1989), and Martin Tinney Gallery in Cardiff (1994 and 1997).

The National Museum of Wales holds ten pieces of work by Zobole, whilst other institutions including the Welsh Arts Council, Contemporary Art Society for Wales, and Rhondda Heritage Park also hold examples of his work.

His later period saw continued experimentation with perspective and viewpoint, exemplified by the Painter and Surroundings series begun in 1991, in which "the hills are reflected in windows and mirrors; they are broken, refracted, complicated". Art critic Meic Stephens observed of these late works: "it is as if he is trying to make contact with everything – the moon, the hills, the wet road, the street-lamps, the houses". This work demonstrates how, even in his final years, Zobole continued to develop his distinctive visual language whilst remaining devoted to his birthplace.

In 1996, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Swansea, recognising his contribution to Welsh art and culture. Despite opportunities to live and work elsewhere, Zobole remained deeply connected to Ystrd throughout his life. Save for brief periods teaching elsewhere, he spent most of his life in his birthplace, which art historian David Fraser Jenkins described as "a total identification, going beyond a supply of subjects".

His fifty-year career spanned the period from about 1948 to 1999, leaving behind what is considered "the single largest and most representative body" of work by a major Welsh artist of the post-war period.