The Art of Mining

This product "The Art of Mining" is the new release by the group on the "Pitmen Painters"

The Ashington Group of painters, pitmen most of them, flourished in Ashington, Northumberland between the early thirties and the mid seventies. They began as a WEA (Workers Educational Association) class in art appreciation but, encouraged by their tutor Robert Lyon, they took to painting and became renowned for the way they depicted their surroundings and working lives.

By the early 1940s the Group had exhibited in London, and continued to thrive after Lyon left to teach in Edinburgh, though he remained in contact with the Group's members. Over the next few years the work of the Group was noticed and praised by a number of prominent British artists and critics, such as Julian Trevelyan and Henry Moore.

After World War II, critical interest in the Group waned, but they continued to meet weekly, producing new art and taking on new members. The critic William Feaver met one of the Group's central members, Oliver Kilbourn, in the early 1970s, and began a renewal of interest in their work, which was restored and featured in several touring exhibitions. In the 1980s, the Group's "Permanent Collection" became the first western exhibition in China after the Cultural Revolution.

The Group's meeting hut was finally demolished in 1983; Kilbourn, the last of the Group's founder members, arranged for the paintings to be put in trust prior to his death in 1993, and they are now kept in Woodhorn Colliery Museum.

Witness first hand this fantastic group of men at work doing their paintings etc. Visit a coal mine working and witness the sights that inspired their art. Other members were, George Blessed, Jimmy Floyd,  Harry Wilson, Len Robinson, etc.

We also travel around the country to see other pitmen painters. Meet

Tom McGuinness  – who was born in Witton Park, County Durham and died in 2006 aged 79, he is viewed as one of the 20th Century’s most influential British industrial painters.

His work chronicled both the heyday and the demise of the region’s once-mighty mining industry, as well as the grim social consequences of pit closures on the coal communities he was brought up in.

From South Wales, Vincent Evans was another prominent painter who worked in the pits from the age of 14 until he left to train as an artist.

Finally, Margaret Belton, a professional artist who turned her attention to mining scenes to gain fresh experience and inspiration.

The final footage shows how the mines changed from the 1930’s until the late 1980’s……………….Running Time Approximately 33 minutes.