Inscription
on verso, signed by artist, lower right in graphite: Graham Smith; by artist, across top: Night and day, every week of every year for more than a century, a landscape / of chimneys bordering the towns of Consett and Blackhill, released their toxic mixture of / sulphureous gas and iron ore dust, touching everyone shadowed under a shifting cloud / of dark smoke. Other than never ending noise, families living closer to the steelworks / chimneys, were not affected as much, except on cold damp days when the air was still. / On such dismal days, every few hours, another layer of dark red smoke, heavy with iron, / suffocated the streets, drifting nowhere until the weather changed. Conditions of industrial / life were tolerated. Most local people depended on what was known in County Durham as, / The Company. No smoke, no jobs; that awful fear of no future. / Graham Smith; center right perpendicular: Other than several small prints / this is the last vintage print / I have of this image. Graham Smith 2011; lower left: Blackkhill, Consett / County Durham 1976; lower center: Print 1981
Provenance
(Augusta Edwards Fine Art, London); NGA purchase, 2022.
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