Exhibition ‘a poignant look at life of a pitman’
ANEW exhibition celebrating the 50-year career of one of the founding members of the Pitmen Painters is “going down really well” with visitors.
Oliver Kilbourn: My Life as a Pitman is on display at Woodhorn Museum and features 39 paintings documenting Kilbourn’s 50-year career as a miner at Ashington and Ellington Collieries.
The exhibition forms part of Ashington Group 90; Museums Northumberland’s year-long programme of exhibitions and events marking 90 years since the formation of the world-famous Pitmen Painters.
Also included in the exhibition is a newly-conserved mining banner from the Ellington colliery branch that features artwork by Oliver Kilbourn. A copy of the original, which dates back to 1951, the banner represents the pride in the close-knit coalfield community and their optimism about the future.
Kilbourn’s original painting that provided the design will be on display too.
Speaking in an interview in the early 1970s, when asked about his paintings and his career as a miner, Kilbourn said: “I couldn’t express myself so well in words but I found that I could express my feelings and what I wanted to get over in drawing and painting.
“I wouldn’t say I had a driving ambition to get down the pit, I just stayed down there fifty years – a working life. After a lot of groaning and grumbling you took a pride in your job, you know. It’s a very skillful job. I was a damn good miner, though I say it myself. I was strong and I liked the life. That was the life I painted.”
Rowan Brown, chief executive of Museums Northumberland, said: “When the Ashington Group of painters first began their exploration into the world of art in 1934, I’m sure none of them imagined they would go on to receive worldwide fame, and that their work would become an important historical record of twentieth-century coalmining in Northumberland.
“This collection of Oliver Kilbourn’s work documents 50 years of his life; from the beginning of his career at Ashington Colliery, to the decades he spent working at the Big E – Ellington Colliery.
“It’s a poignant look at the life of a pitman; and the role art has played in capturing, documenting, and celebrating this important part of Northumberland’s history.”
Oliver Kilbourn: My Life as a Pitman runs at Woodhorn Museum until Sunday, September 15 2024. Ashington Group 90, the year-long programme of exhibitions and events marking 90 years since the formation of the worldfamous Ashington Group, continues until Sunday, January 5, 2025.