North East Museums news

I was delighted to recently attend the AGM of the Friends of the Hatton and have the opportunity to speak about the work of North East Museums. We manage 12 museums, galleries and heritage sites in the region which includes the Hatton Gallery which, along with Great North Museum:Hancock, we look after on behalf of Newcastle University.

 I was particularly pleased to showcase the fact that we have recently taken on looking after three museums in Northumberland on behalf of the County Council. These are Hexham Old Gaol, Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum and Woodhorn Museum. The largest of these is Woodhorn near Ashington and I am certain that it will be of particular interest to members of the Friends of the Hatton as it is home to the permanent collection of the Ashington Group of Pitmen Painters.

 The Group started in 1934 when a number of men, mainly miners, in the town began a course in art appreciation run by the WEA (Workers Educational Association) under the guidance of Robert Lyon a tutor from a forerunner of Newcastle University’s Art Department. The men had previously studied evolution and wanted to do something different. Robert Lyon soon realised their lack of knowledge regarding art did not stop their enthusiasm for the subject, which soon led to them experimenting in the different techniques themselves.

In 1936 The Ashington Group held its very first exhibition in the Hatton Gallery creating a direct link between the two museums. Over the next 50 years the Ashington Group met weekly, continuing to experiment with techniques and materials. The story of the Ashington Group would later inspire Lee Hall’s famous play ‘The Pitmen Painters’.

 If you haven’t visited I would encourage you to do so and also see a new gallery, The Coal Town Collection, dedicated to the work of social documentary photographer Mik Critchlow (1955–2023) which opens on the 24^th of May.

 Mik documented his hometown and community of Ashington over a 45-year period after seeing an exhibition by the Ashington Group in 1977.  As Mik said: “They recorded their lives with such honesty, painting the ordinary, the mundane, the everyday and put it all down on paper or canvas or hardboard. They showed me that ordinary people’s lives could be important and could be seen as art.” Mik’s work captures the end of the coal mining industry in Ashington and the immediate and longer-term impacts of the loss of the industry on the town’s people, places, and community and is a stunning collection.

 More information on visiting Woodhorn and all of our other museums can be found at
https://www.northeastmuseums.org.uk/

Keith Merrin
Director, North East Museums (formerly Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums)

 www.northeastmuseums.org.uk