Museums Northumberland Awarded Curatorial Research Grant for Coalface Drawers

Museums Northumberland were awarded a Curatorial Research Grant of £36,000 in 2023 towards research for their exhibition exploring the early years of The Ashington Group of Artists. The exhibition Coalface Drawers is the culmination of their research project:

The Ashington Group of Artists, now more popularly known as The Pitmen Painters, was formed in 1934, hence 2024 marks the ninetieth anniversary of their formation. The group consisted of men employed in the mining industry in remote Northumberland and were attendees at their local Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). The members requested a class on art appreciation and, after having exhausted the entirety of the syllabus of available classes in the district, these classes were taught by Robert Lyon, Master of Painting at King’s College (now Newcastle University), commencing in 1934 in an ex-army hut in Ashington.

After a brief period of slideshow lectures, Lyon decided to have the Group make artworks themselves, in order for them to better relate to the challenges of the artist, an approach he referred to as “The Visual and Practical Approach” or more informally, “Seeing by Doing”.

The taught classes continued for eight years, until Lyon’s departure to teach at Edinburgh College of Art, and the robust artistic tenets, themes and principles he instilled occupied a changing cohort of twenty or so members for some fifty years. The Group enjoyed considerable interest in the late 1930s through to the 1940s, and exhibited in London, Newcastle, Edinburgh and across the UK during that period.

The start and end points of the Ashington Group are bookended by the depression of the 1930s and the recession of the 1980s, combined with the collapse of the very industry that spawned the Group. These mirrored socio-economic and political factors provide an interesting framework to view the reception and interpretation of their work contemporaneously and historically.

The permanent collection of the Ashington Group’s work, held in trust at Woodhorn Museum in Ashington, is an unparalleled document of a vernacular working-class culture, depicting from within all aspects of a sequestered community’s work, leisure and personal lives.

The Curatorial Research Grant supported the research and work of artist and curator Dr Narbi Price on the Ashington Group collection held at Woodhorn, important early works which have been in the collection of Robert Lyon since 1938 and two private collections of artworks, documents and artefacts from Ashington Group members. The outcome of this research is the Coalface Drawers exhibition, showing at Woodhorn Museum until 5 January 2025.