George Chapman was an artist who trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal College of Art. He became known for his realistic paintings of the Rhondda and the surrounding coalmining areas in South Wales. In 1957, he won the Gold Medal at the National Eisteddfod and subsequently moved to Wales. His paintings have become a record of the communities and industrial landscapes that were rapidly disappearing during his lifetime.

Originally one of the Great Bardfield Group from Essex, George Chapman was drawn to Wales and the mining valleys of the south where he purchased an old Bedford van and toured the collieries and slag heaps which gave him inspiration until his death in 1993. Chapman had a series of one-man exhibitions in London and Cambridge.