Masterpiece: Cubist Pop Art Precursor Tate Gallery Artist Fougeron Coalfield Workers, 1940s Watercolour on Paper

This extraordinarily scene of three workers -two men and a woman - carrying and handling heavy loads what I presume to be coal - was painted by André Fougeron (1913-1998) in circa 1950

With a cubist influence, vigorous lines and colours, the work can almost be considered a precursor to the pop art that would emerge later in the decade.

Between January and April 1950 Fougeron worked in the mining town of Lens in the Northern France, documenting the toils of workers in the coalfield in drawings and in paintings. It is possible that the present watercolour is one of the works that were created there.

Already before the war, the young painter Fougeron had already started to make a reputation for himself. He exhibited with the ''Indelicates'', a group of radical young artists, at the Billiet-Vorms gallery. At the ''super-independent'' art fair, the Salon des Supindépendants, he showed political works on the subject of the Spanish Civil War. He had joined the Communist Party and was welcomed to the ''Maison de la Culture'', the powerhouse for a united Left front of intellectuals and artists in Paris.

Mobilised, he fought in the Battle of Belgium, was caught, taken prisoner, escaped. He returned to Paris via the Free Zone and joined the resistance. By the time the pastel presented here was painted, he had turned his artists'' studio into an underground print workshop. He printed clandestine journals including the album of lithographs Vaincre, a collaborative work containing explicit denunciations of Hitler and concentration camps, but also Petain and French collaborationist brutalities.

Quite some guy, huh? The French establishment did not particularly appreciate being reminded of their shortcomings, and his lifelong allegiance to communism was considered rather awkward, too. Rather than being considered one of the major artists of the 20th Century, towards the end of the latter, Fougeron was almost forgotten in his native country. Oddly enough, his rehabilitation started in the UK.

In 1982, his work ''The Judges'' figured in ''Aftermath: new images of man, France 1944-1954'', which inaugurated the Barbican Art Gallery.

Surrounded by colourful paintings by Matisse, Bonnard and Picasso, Fougeron''s 1950 painting none the less dominated coverage of the exhibition. The Tate Modern in London dedicated a whole room to him at its opening in 2000. Of the eight paintings by Fougeron spanning the 1937-1958 period which have been acquired by the Tate, two are on permanent display.

Even in France, things are now changing: Fougeron had a one-man show in the Museum of Roubaix in 2014.

Fougeron''s painting are rarely on the market, as many have been lost or destroyed, so I am absolutely delighted to be able to present this powerful painting from the artist''s best period.

Measuring 47 x 60 cm, the watercolour on paper is signed and dated at the upper right. The overall framed size in a custom frame with a linen liner French is 63 x 76 cm.

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