‘But ye de de art, divvint ye?’ Authenticity, identity and the historicisation of the Pitmen Painters

Lee Hall’s recent play The Pitmen Painters, based on William Feaver’s account of ‘unprofessional painting’ by miners in a Northumbrian coal mining village, raises issues surrounding the representation of the North in visual culture. This paper considers the now increased visibility of the Ashington Group and their adoption as nostalgic symbols of self-improvement and the intellectual life of the working classes. The reproductions of the Group’s paintings in Hall’s play prompt consideration of current debates around access to education, the use of art as social improvement, the loss of traditional Leftist values in the British Labour Party, the transformation of sites of heavy industry to cultural/heritage sites and the perceived poverty of ambition in communities such as Ashington today. The focus on the Group here also reignites problematic questions for art history itself: the art historian’s urge to critically frame groups of artists and the continued equation of non-professional art with ‘authenticity’ in art history and criticism, as well as the ethical issues involved in ‘speaking on behalf of others’ (Craig Owens)