Welsh artist Gwynfor Roberts:

Paintings of Wales. In particular, the County Borough of Caerphilly.

My Dad's family are from Bethesda,North Wales and sometime in the 1920's they moved South to Abertridwr, South Wales where my grandad worked in the coal mines. A few years later they moved to Tiryberth, and he continued working as a miner in Penallta Colliery. Sadly he lost his life at Penallta - he was hit by a runaway tram. My mum's family are from Gilfach, Bargoed, both had past away before I was born.
I arrived in 1951, born into a mining family in Tiryberth - a small village in the Rhymney Valley. We moved to the nearby village of Cefn-Hengoed when I was three and I attended the local Derwendeg infants / primary school. I recall drawing lots of ships and planes at that time. I then went to Graddfa Secondary School for boys' in Ystrad Mynach where I was given my first opportunity to use oil paints. I was lucky enough to keep the painting which I have at home. It was during my days at Graddfa that I took a great interest in Engineering drawing which eventually lead to a career as a draughtsman. In 1967 I gained a five year apprenticeship with South Wales Switchgear in Pontllanfraith and at 17/18 found myself working in the drawing office. I enjoyed 21 years in Switchgear leaving in 1988 and moving to nearby Lansing Henley (later to become Linde) as a design draughtsman. 20 years later at the age of 57 I retired and now enjoy painting.

In 1974 I married Avril and we bought a house In Pengam Road, Ystrad Mynach where we are living today. It wasn't until the mid seventies that I returned to painting and joined the local Bargoed and District Art society of which I am a member of today.

From my early paintings it became apparent that I was producing local work of the Rhymney Valley and I numbered each painting in turn, something I continue with today. Each year I exhibited with the Art Society and I suppose because the paintings were of local interest I was able to sell a number of them.
In 2000 and with a good record of my paintings I decided to launch the website - www.gwynfor.com
This site is an exhibition of my lifetimes work - my early work and my very latest paintings. Many of these paintings are owned by local people and thanks to them I am able to display them here.
The site is continually updated with new work so keep in touch.

As you may have read on the home page, I accepted an invitation from the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth granting them a licence to archive the contents of this website. To quote them they have,
"Identified the web site as an important part of Wales' documentary heritage and would like it to remain available to researchers and the public in the future."
It is pleasing to have my work acknowleged in this way so for any Welsh artists out there, it is worth noting that my early school days were my only art lessons.
Enjoy the site