A sculptor from Morecambe is set to unveil his statue of one of the most famous painters of all-time.
Anthony Padgett will reveal the memorial marking Vincent Van Gogh's missionary connection to the working class at Parc de l’Agrappe, Frameries, in Belgium on Thursday (May 15).
The unveiling of the sculpture will form part of a commemoration ceremony for the many miners who died at the Agrappe mine in Borinage, and the Fief de Lambrechies, where there was a double explosion in May 1934.
Anthony said: "My thanks go to Filip Depuydt for making this possible. Van Gogh's grounding in the Borinage is so important, his concern for working people should be held dear by those who cherish his work.
‘’Vincent's concern for the miners and their families was integral to his work and life."
Van Gogh was born 1853 and died in 1890. In his working life Van Gogh began as an art dealer in London, then he became a teacher in Ramsgate.
Aged 25 he volunteered to become pastor to a poor mining village in the Borinage, southwestern Belgium.
This thriving coal mining district was also one of the most impoverished regions of Europe. Van Gogh lived among the miners and witnessed their everyday struggles.
As a young pastor he gave up his entitlements and assumed the way of life in the Borinage. He found that he wanted to artistically express their resilience and the harsh realities of their existence.
He left two years later as an aspiring artist whose focus of the lives of ordinary working people that continued until his death.
In 1879, van Gogh finally gave up preaching and made up his mind to become an artist. After a brief visit to his parents in the Dutch town of Etten, van Gogh returned to the Borinage in 1880 as an artist.
Van Gogh felt a strong connection to peasants and other working-class people, a feeling that grew from his own struggles and his admiration for artists like Jean-François Millet who also depicted peasant life.
His later painting of The Potato Eaters, created in 1885, is a prime example of Van Gogh's interest in portraying the harsh realities of rural life and the working class.
The award winning artist, who is also known locally as a vintage dance teacher, is no stranger to creating art in Morecambe - and indeed all over the UK - that gets people talking.
Mr Padgett is the brains behind the Morecambe People's Biennial and the Morecambe Bay Art Fair, where he unveiled drainpipe sculptures of boxers Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua at the Winter Gardens in 2023.
Anthony also ran the town's first ever 'Deepfake' art exhibition at Morecambe Library and created the Praying Shell sculpture which overlooks the Bay at Bolton-le-Sands.
His sculptures of artists Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Kurt Schwitters are sited internationally, he has works in private, public and academic collections and is a campaigner for artists’ working rights.
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