Born in Warsaw in 1911 into a working-class Jewish family, Josef Herman arrived in Britain in 1940, settling first in Glasgow and then in the South Wales mining village of Ystradgynlais. By the early 1950s, known mainly for his images of Welsh miners, he had established himself as a major figure in contemporary British art and his work featured prominently in the 1951 Festival of Britain. Although often dark, his paintings have a warm glow to them. He achieved this by underpainting with light, bright colour, then building up slowly with darker tones so that the life of the picture radiates from within. Herman was known fondly as 'Joe Bach' to the people of Ystradgynlais, the former mining community at the top of the Swansea Valley where he lived for 11 years from 1944, only leaving when the dampness of the Welsh climate began affecting his health.