George William Bissill was an English painter and furniture designer whose artwork drew extensively from his early, difficult life as a coal miner.

Born in Fairford, Gloucestershire, in 1896, George William Bissill was only thirteen years old when he was sent into the coal mines, working initially with pit ponies and then at the coal face. After the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Kings Royal Rifles, hoping to escape a life underground. But because of his experience he was immediately trained as a sapper. A difficult and dangerous job which involved tunneling, defusing mines and laying mines under enemy lines. While working near Béthune in France, he suffered a catastrophic tunnel collapse. Later in the war, he was badly gassed and invalided out of service.

With his army pension, he spent a few months at Nottingham School of Art, but felt it wasn’t necessary and that he had already developed his own distinctive style and subject matter, saying later that the pit was the only art school he needed.

Bissill moved to London and developed a friendship with the critic, writer and art collector Arnold Haskell. In 1926, Haskell commissioned Bissill to create the interior design scheme for his Kensington home. Bissill completed this in the Art Deco style, adorning the wall with many of his paintings. In 1941, a bomb landed on the home and all was destroyed. Luck, it’s safe to say, was not always on Bissell’s side.

In his later years, he left London and relocated to the small village of Ibthorpe in Hampshire, working as a landscape painter and art restorer. He was also a well-known fixture as a dealer in the local art salerooms.