Paul Peter Piech (1920–1996) was a visionary printmaker whose bold, distinctive prints on themes of equality, freedom and justice deliver powerful socially and politically charged messages. With an increase in political polarisation and a trend, in some parts of the world, to more authoritarian forms of politics, his commitment to activism through art means that his work continues to resonate today.

Piech's work is held internationally and across numerous public collections, including the Regional Print Centre, the National Library of Wales and the V&A. This article focuses on Piech's work held at the Cynon Valley Museum collection in south Wales.

An American of Ukrainian heritage, Piech met his wife Irene, from Aberdare in the south Wales Valleys, when stationed in Cardiff during the Second World War. It was here that his strong connection with Wales began and an affinity with its people, cultures and traditions.

Born in 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, Piech was the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He was raised surrounded by the Ukrainian culture of his parents and immersed in Brooklyn's multicultural community, and these experiences were formative in developing the moral and ethical outlook so evident in his later work. As Theo Inglis observes, 'growing up in a culturally diverse working-class neighbourhood during the Great Depression... shaped Piech's later globally diverse outlook and interest in equality'.

Piech displayed artistic ability from a young age and studied at the Cooper Union, New York from the age of 19. After training as a graphic designer with Dorlands Advertising Agency, he was enlisted to United States Eighth Army Air Force during the Second World War, where his artistic skills were put to use painting pin-up girls on the fronts of aircraft. Assigned to Cardiff as part of his service, it was there that he met his wife Irene Tompkins, a Welsh nurse and midwife.

After the war, Piech continued his education at Chelsea College of Art and pursued a long and successful career in graphic design and advertising. He worked internationally, including for the American Interiors magazine and British Vogue, as well as a 17 years as artistic director of W. S. Crawford Advertising Agency.

Heavily influenced by German Expressionism, Bauhaus, Picasso and Paul Klee, Piech worked in a style that was both bold and direct. Often featuring large, graphic figures, his work featured dramatic contrasts of light and dark, with a palette of black and primary colours. He used bold, stylised typography to convey simple messages intended to grab the attention of the viewer.

In 1959, Piech established his own printing press, the Taurus Press, producing large volumes of linocut and woodcut prints. Piech's daughter, Olwen Stocker, has described how he worked at a relentless pace, cutting up large rolls of lino from the local flooring shop and hanging the works up to dry on a washing line in his conservatory.

Piech's 'Martin Luther King' series alone featured 100 pieces, with his wider body of work running into many thousands. As well as focusing his own art practice, he was also a passionate teacher, and taught part time at colleges across the UK including Chelsea College of Arts, Leicester College of Arts and London College of Printing.

Piech's art is known for its unflinching engagement with social and political issues. He was deeply concerned with questions of power and oppression and his prints explore themes such as social justice, racism, the protection of human rights, opposition to war and personal responsibility. His artworks reflect his passion to spread the word of social reform and his belief in the agency of the individual to create positive change.

This outlook is epitomised in Piech's 'Racism is Poison' series, comprising a series of striking depictions of the human suffering caused by totalitarianism, fascism and racism.

This collection depicts and references acts of violence and oppression, commanding viewers to remember racially motivated atrocities. This includes, among others, a poster remembering the death of 176 children killed in the Soweto uprising in South Africa; the far-right arson attack by white supremacists in Soligen, Germany, in 1993; and the segregationist policies of the South African apartheid.

As Piech's daughter explained to Cynon Valley Museum, his 'priority was to get his message across to people, directly and with urgency.' He would put his posters up in public places and bus shelters so that people 'get out of their apathy and think about the world.' Piech's posters, far from being 'high art', were cheap to make and quick to mass produce, reflecting the immediacy of his work and his desire to disseminate his messages as widely as possible.

The sense of urgency in his posters is reinforced by carefully chosen text conveying clear, direct messages. Kenneth Hardacre described Piech as 'a man whose need to communicate his faith and his fears was so pressing that it often appeared to be impatient with the very means he had chosen for expressing that need'.

Not one to shy away from controversy, Piech ran into trouble with the American Embassy in 1979 for his depiction of the US flag in his artwork. The flag had been turned on its side to depict prison bars, with two black figures behind the bars, accompanied by the text 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty'. This woodcut print can be seen in the V&A's collection.

Piech's artwork was also heavily influenced by poetry, literature and music, particularly jazz. As Jim Creed explained in an interview with Cynon Valley Museum: 'Piech was sensitive to and influenced by everything around him: art, society, music, literature, politics, and his own life experiences past and present.'

As well as portraying well-known literary figures such as William Shakespeare, T. S. Elliott and Emily Brontë, he was also drawn to those Welsh poets whose works heavily aligned with his political and ethical world views. The Welsh poets and literary figures depicted in Piech's works addressed themes closely aligned with those in his own art, including the representation of oppressed people and communities.

The poet Idris Davies, for example, is known for capturing the struggles of working-class life in the industrial valleys of south Wales. His poems often reflect the hardships experienced by mining communities, the community spirit, and the challenges of the economic and social landscape of the time. Similarly, Piech depicted Welsh literary figures such as Waldo Williams, Saunders Lewis and D. J. Williams, who used their literary works to express their anti-war and Welsh nationalist stances.

Piech developed a strong affinity with Wales and the Welsh people, where his wife's family had their roots and where he chose to spend the last ten years of his life. Several of Piech's artworks in the Cynon Valley collection are illustrations to accompany the poetry of John Gurney, with whom he collaborated on several occasions.

The Cynon Valley Museum collection contains Piech's artworks that were used to illustrate a series of sonnets written by Gurney on the coal industry (Coal, a Sonnet Sequence) and was published in 1994 to mark the proposed closure of Tower Colliery in the Cynon Valley, the last deep-mine in Wales. The poetry and artwork depict the lives of the coal miner, the exploitative working conditions, the strength and distinctiveness of culture in Welsh coal mining communities and the human impact of the mass pit closures on the south Wales valleys.

In Zion Chapel Piech depicts a typical Welsh Valleys chapel against the backdrop of a coal mine, two definitive cultural symbols of Welsh working-class identity. There are flashes of light emanating from the front door: perhaps representing the sound of the Sunday hymns referenced in the poem, or the 'fire-and-brimstone' preaching associated with Nonconformity in Wales.

In The Infernal Machine Piech's artwork represents the claustrophobic working conditions endured by miners, depicting rows of miners boxed in a mineshaft cage. The accompanying poetry likens the cage to an instrument of torture, transporting miners underground to a place of stifling oppression, deprived of natural light and air. The image has resonances with Nicholas Evans' Pit Closure, Miners Coming Up.

Likewise, the unnatural position of the miner in his work Thin Seams represents the agonising working conditions endured by coal miners. His anguish is revealed in his pained expression and cramped, angled posture, while the earth above him serves as an impenetrable obstacle to the light and warmth of the sun shining above ground.

Piech lived and continued to work in Porthcawl, South Wales for the latter part of his life, until his death in 1996. His work remains a powerful testament to the intersection of art and activism, with his striking use of typography and imagery continuing to inspire dialogue on contemporary social and political issues today.

Michelle Lewis, Collections Engagement Officer, Art UK

This content was supported by Welsh Government funding

Further reading

Cynon Valley Museum, 'The Work of Paul Peter Piech'

Lottie Hoare, Obituary: Paul Peter Piech, The Independent, 1996

Theo Inglis, 'The Overlooked Work of Paul Peter Piech', Eye on Design, 2020

National Library of Wales, 'Celebrating the contribution of Paul Peter Piech to visual art in Wales', 2020