Vincent Evans

Vincent Evans (1896–1976) was a Welsh artist who had a varied career as a painter, printmaker and art teacher and is known for his depictions of mine workers.

Biography Evans was born in Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley in South Wales. Evans was born into a large family of seven children and from the age of thirteen worked as a coal miner. In 1911, he began taking part-time classes at the Swansea School of Art and in 1912 some of his drawings were printed in the Cambria Daily Leader.

After ten years working in local pits, Evans attended Swansea School of Art. By 1919 Evans had had a picture exhibited at the Royal Academy and his painting Toilers Underground had been bought by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain for £60. In 1920, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, RCA, where he studied under William Rothenstein and Frank Short until 1922.

After graduating from the RCA, Evans undertook a variety of commissions in Britain and overseas. Between 1924 and 1933, he worked as the Art Director at the Wanganui Technical College in New Zealand. This led to Evans representing that country in the art contest at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. After he returned from New Zealand, Evans resumed painting scenes in the South Wales coalfields and throughout the 1930s produced a substantial body of work there. In 1936 he had two large pieces showing underground workers shown at the Royal Academy. Before the War, in 1935, Evans had also completed a similar commission for the South Wales branch of the Miners Federation. He also exhibited at the New English Art Club, the Leicester Galleries and at the Paris Salon.