Ashington Group

The Ashington Group of painters, pitmen most of them, flourished in 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.

William Feaver, whose book Pitmen Painters inspired Lee Hall's play of the same name (opening in the Cottesloe in late May) has assembled a display of paintings, drawings and sculpture by Oliver Kilbourn and other members of this unique body of artists.