Seeing the North

Final Episode of the 'Grim Up North' Podcast, Series I

To any podcast listeners amongst my subscribers, I want to draw your attention to the final episode of Series I of the podcast ‘Grim Up North: A Podcast About the North, from the North’ that I co-host with the poet and photographer Adrian Scott.

The title of this episode is ‘Seeing the North’’ Adrian and I have been looking at some of the artists, sculptors and photographers who have depicted the North of England in their work, or who have been influenced by the North in their artistic journeys.

Amongst other things we look at the photography of Bill Brandt, Don McCullin, Fay Godwin and Martin Parr; at Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth; at Lowry and Hockney, George Cunningham and Theodore Major. The list of possibilities is endless, and it was hard to narrow it down.

We have devoted special attention to the visionary paintings of the Wigan-Theodore Major:

And we’ve focused on the 1930s group of miner-painters from Ashington in Northumberland, who became known as the Pitmen Painters.

We made a road-trip/pilgrimage to Ashington to discuss their work, and you can hear the results in the podcast.

You can download the podcast here or on Spotify, iTunes and other streaming platforms. We absolutely loved enjoyed discussing these fabulous artists and their significance for the North, and I hope you will too!