Today’s blog is not about one forgotten artist, but rather a lesser-known group of artists, concurrently known as the Ashington Group or the Pitmen Painters. Their story is unique in many ways, from their lack of artistic training to their ability to exhibit works despite art not being their primary occupation. Most of the painters in the group were miners and all came from a working class background from the north of England.
Their story begins with the formation of the Workers Education Association (WEA), its aim to educate working people by forging a ‘partnership between the working class movement and the universities'. Each founded branch was to be supported by a district, branch and committee structure responsible for organising classes and matching each group with a highly qualified university tutor. A group of miners from Ashington has attended one such class on evolution in 1924, but then decided to try something else and consequently signed up for Art Appreciation lessons. Their assigned lecturer was Robert Lyon from Armstrong College in Newcastle Upon Tyne, then part of Durham University. He initially began traditionally- showing the group sculptures and paintings by Michelangelo and other masters, but was not able to connect with his new students, for whom the world of Renaissance was so far removed. Lyon was a great believer in the appreciation of art through doing, and quickly decided to adapt a practical approach of learning instead. He initially started with creating linocuts with the group, but soon they progressed to knives and brushes. The idea was to learn about the old masters by making art rather than simply observing.
Lyon would choose weekly subjects for members to paint at home, and they would then have to bring their works to class to be criticised and discussed by everyone. They will focus on subjects that surrounded them, showing the world of mining communities- the work at the pits, whippet racing, weekend work at allotments. In 1935, the group visited London (for many it was their first time) to visit all major museums, including the National Gallery and Tate. Soon, it became apparent that their works were worthy of being exhibited themselves.
The group held their first exhibition in Newcastle in 1936. Their catalogue said that ‘the collection is not a show of the work of students learning to paint, it is an external sign or symbol of the principle of ‘seeing by doing’'. The end of the 1930s saw a great fascination with untrained artists or as they were then known ‘naïve’ painters, and the group became rather popular and gained patronage from Helen Sutherland (important English art patron and collector from the north of England) and artist Julian Trevelyan. They widely exhibited during the time alongside other untrained artists.
Arthur Whinnom, the group’s Honorary Secretary, wrote in an essay for the 1939 exhibition that their works represent an attempt to understand painting by doing it themselves with the principle outlined as:
to follow our instincts and to paint what seemed to us to express our own experience and feelings […] pit life pictures, working class homes, and incidents typical of a mining district […] We don’t paint things on the spot but as memory images […] The incidents and life around us offer us a satisfactory scope for pictorial expression.
Many, like Trevelyan, saw the group as unique and offering an insight into a previously unsung world. In 1938, Trevelyan and a group of other artists and activists from the Mass Observation experiment stayed in Ashington for a week, living with George Brown (one of the leaders of the Ashington Group). They were taken down a coal mine to see the daily reality of the group and the coal communities. Unfortunately, some visitors continued to stereotype the miners with an unfortunate incident of someone living beer for them in lieu of paying for rent. In their mind, northern miners would be keen to receive such a present. In reality, most Pitmen Painters were temperate members of the Independent Labour Party and, hence, did not drink.
The core of fascination with their works at the time lay with their focus on Ashington-centred subjects - the world rarely seen in art and unknown by the majority of people in the UK. Mining communities were heavily stereotyped during the time, and the group has shown how complex and diverse their lives actually were. They showed the hard work of the pits, but also the culture of whippet racing and all the aspects of life that surrounded them. No one from the professional art world could understand their culture as well as them.
At the beginning, the group would congregate at the local YMCA, but later erected their own Hut. It was first based in Longhorsley but was later moved to Ashington and erected on waste ground in Hirst Yard behind the central Hall. They continued painting during the war showing the building of shelters, the arrangements of gas masks and Dig for Victory.
Lyon stayed as the group’s tutor for eight years, but they did not disperse upon his departure. Instead, they continued to meet weekly and drew up a Rule Book in 1946 agreeing the set of rules to govern their work, now that they were independent of the WEA. The book covered membership, conduct and provisions for permanent collection of members work. The rules stated that the members could not claim ownership of any particular work, unless it was claimed before going to exhibition or before being hung on the walls of the Group’s Hut. Proceeds from sales went into providing art materials and upkeep of the hut. They often used, in particular at the beginning, a cheap water-based paint destined for domestic use and painted on wood and cardboard. This later created significant difficulties in conserving and cleaning their works.
The 1970s saw a resurgence of interest in the group’s activities, with exhibitions held in Durham and the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. They were rediscovered by William Feaver who recorded their history and arranged subsequent exhibitions. Their works were shown abroad in Germany and Netherlands, and were even take to China, where they featured in the first exhibition from the West since the Cultural Revolution.
The group continued meeting until the 1980s, when it was dismantled. The pits have closed by that time. Simultaneously, it became apparent that the group’s Hut was not suitable for permanently storing the collection. Oliver Kilbourn took an active role in finding the right space for it. The works were first moved to the National Coal Board Staff Training Centre and have then found its home at the Woodhorn Colliery Museum. Following a major renovation programme in 2007, a new gallery has been created to display the collection. The Hut was demolished in 1983. The last surviving member of the group was John F. Harrison, who died in 2004.
Feaver’s book-Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934-1984, was adapted into a play by Lee Hall (creator of Billy Elliot film). It was successful and premiered in Newcastle before being transferred to the National Theatre in London, therefore bringing the attention to the life and work of these incredible artists once again.
Pitmen Painters allow us a glimpse into the world now lost, the world of northern mining communities as they were then. They not only speak of the hardships, but also of friendship, support and community full of life. They provide an important historical record and challenge many stereotypes that surround English working class communities. Finally, they prove that one does not always have to have artistic education to create important works of art. More importantly, they celebrate both the community and individuality, as each artist in the group showed his own view of the world that surrounded them.
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