Josef Herman discovered his mature artistic voice after visiting the Welsh village of Ystradgynlais in the summer of 1944, when he saw a group of miners returning from work briefly outlined on a bridge against a copper-coloured sky. That image stayed with him and the miners became an enduring source of inspiration as he lived among them for the next eleven years. He was swiftly accepted into the community and nicknamed 'Joe Bach', and the work he produced made his name in Britain. Herman did not paint the miners at work in the pit but often leaving work and returning home, exhausted after their labours. More often than not, they are anonymous, and represent the universal rather than the particular: they stand for the dignity of labour. Here two upright figures stand in conversation, their figures echoing the vertical forms of the telegraph poles and smoking chimney beyond.