Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934?1984

by William Feaver

Featuring the paintings of the Ashington Group--a group of miners from an isolated village in Northumberland in England who took an art appreciation class in the 1930s--this revealing history chronicles how the miners came to take up brushes and chisels to learn something of how art is made. It documents their growing fame, their discovery by documentary photographers and filmmakers, and their resistance to interference from the social research organization Mass Observation. Inspired by the world around them, their subjects included clocking in at the mine, work on the coalface, the pithead baths, Saturday night at the club, domestic chores, and World War II. The pitmen's endeavors produced an account of a community in painting and sculpture which is considered to be without equal or rival. Attracting wide acclaim, the collection toured Europe and China, and eventually found a home in the Woodhorn Colliery Museum in Northumbria.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent study of a fascinating phenomenon. The Ashington Group of painters, from a Northumberland mining community, attracted the interest of the art world in the 19030s when it was set up, and still has something to say to us today about how life and art can interact.

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