valerie ganz – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

Valerie Ganz, Five Paintings from the “Shower” Series, circa 1980s, Mixed Media

Valerie Ganz was born in Swansea, South Wales, United Kingdom, overlooking the dramatic sweep of Swansea Bay with its background of heavy industry. She attended Swansea College of Art and studied painting, sculpture and stained glass. Ganz remained as a tutor until 1973 when she turned her attention to painting full time.

As Valerie Ganz’a interest in the landscape of South Wales grew, her attention was drawn to the landscape of its industrial areas and, in particular, to its mining industry. Over a period of many years, Ganz worked at fourteen different collieries, taking a house and studio in 1985 at Six Bells, Abertillery.

For a year Ganz worked at the Six Bells Colliery, alongside the miners both above ground and at the coalface. In the evening she made studies of the miners and their families at choir practice, in the snooker halls and in the chapel. This work formed the basis of the mining exhibition in 1986 at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea. The exhibition was entitled “Mining in Art”; her work was shown along with the works of fellow artists Josef Herman, Jack Crabtree and Nicholas Evans.

Valerie Ganz died after a prolonged period of illness on the twenty-eighth of September in 2015 at Swansea, United Kingdom. Today, her works are held in the collections of the National Coal Mining Museum for England in Wakefield as well as the Newport Museum and Art Gallery in Wales.

Insert Image: Valerie Ganz, “Ben Waits Patiently”, circa 1980s, Oil on Canvas, 31.5 x 26 cm, Private Collection

Valerie Ganz, “Miners Changing After Work”, Date Unknown, Mixed Media, 53 x 44 cm, Private Collection

Born in 1936 in Swansea, Wales, Valerie Ganz studied art in her hometown, later working as a teacher and lecturer. She left teaching in 1973 to concentrate on full-time painting. Ganz became known as one of Wales’ most intrepid and original painters. Fascinated by the working life of Welsh coal miners, she regularly entered the mines the paint them as they worked and gathered.

Ganz eventually moved to Six Bells, Abertillery, where she took a house and studio to spend a year painting at the Six Bells Colliery. Her work formed the basis of many exhibitions, particularly the “Mining in Art” exhibition in 1986 at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea. Ganz also spent a year painting daily at the Central School of Ballet in London and painted behind the scenes at the Moscow State Circus. She died in September of 2015 at the age of seventy-nine, after struggling with ill health.