The Pitmen Painters

Book excerpt: In 1934, a group of Ashington miners and a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an Art Appreciation evening class. Unable to understand one another, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Within a few years, the most avant-garde artists became their friends, their work was taken for prestigious collections and they were celebrated throughout the British art world; but everyday they worked, as before, down the mine. Their story is here brought to life by the writer of Billy Elliot.