The Pitman Painters

Our two walking groups had a day trip to Ashington today. Ashington was once a centre of coal mining in the north east of England. The pits are now all silent.

We met at the wonderful Woodhorn Colliery Museum and started with a talk about The Pitman Painters. I commend them to you. They were a group of miners who decided to learn about art and art appreciation. Their tutor (through the WEA, the Workers Education Association, realised that teaching these men about art was going to be very difficult. He suggested that they learned to draw and paint.

This inspired idea produced the Ashington Group, founded in 1934, also known as the Pitmen Painters. They produced hundreds of paintings showing what life was like both above and below ground for their mining communities in Northumberland.

Over the next 50 years the Ashington Group met weekly, experimenting with techniques and materials.

In my blip, Mandy, was telling us about some of the paintings. She was an excellent speaker and we enjoyed her talk. You are looking at some of the earliest paintings. The artists developed technique and finesse as time went by.

I find the way they recorded the ordinariness of life very moving.

We had a walk around Ashington to see signs of the mining heritage, then returned to the museum for a short guided tour of the above ground workings and machinery.

In my extra, Cliff, in the flat cap, is telling us his stories about growing up in Ashington. He did a great job. My second extra is what remains at Woodhorn Colliery with the Ashington Miners' Memorial in the foreground.

It was a grand day out.