Ernest Zobole was a Welsh painter and teacher, he was born in and lived in the Rhondda Valley.His parents were Italians who had emigrated to Wales in 1910, Zobole’s father doing surface work at the local pit, his mother keeping a small shop. After serving with the British Army in Palestine and Egypt, Zobole attended Cardiff College of Art, 1948–53, where he and some friends such as Charles Burton were known as the Rhondda Group. Influences on his work included Marc Chagall and Heinz Koppel, living and teaching in the early 1950s in Dowlais, and like these two artists Zobole brought an often intense personal vision to his work. Scenes of the Rhondda Valley, to which he returned in 1957 after a few years teaching in Anglesey, are commonly in gentle, lyrical colours, nocturnal and dreamlike.
Zobole taught 1963–84 at Newport College of Art and was a founder-member of 56 Group.
Showed in many group exhibitions, including Howard Roberts Gallery in Cardiff, Dillwyn Gallery in Swansea, SWG, WAC and Royal National Eisteddfod. Solo shows included Newport Museum & Art Gallery, 1986; Ceri Richards Gallery, University College of Wales, Swansea, 1989; and Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff, 1994 and 1997. WAC, CASW and National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, hold his work. He died in Llwynypia, Rhondda . In 2002, there was an exhibition of work by Zobole and the sculptor Robert Thomas at University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, This was followed in 2004 by a retrospective at Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
(c) 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman