The new exhibition at Woodhorn Museum will celebrate the legacy of Mik Critchlow and his work, and the hugely important role he played in documenting the end of Northumberland’s mining history.
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00:00Born and raised in Ashen Inn, Mick Critchlow amassed an archive of over 50,000 pictures
00:06during his 44-year photography career. Part of a mining family, Mick often referred to
00:11coal as being in our blood. His family moved to Northumberland in the mid-1800s to work
00:17in the region's coal mines. Mick's grandfather worked at Woodhorn Colliery for 52 years,
00:22his father spent 45 years as a miner, and his two brothers also spent 25 years working
00:28underground. Mick died on his birthday aged 68 in Ashen Inn. Two years later, a mixed
00:35family in Woodhorn Museum announced his collection would once again be showcased at the museum.
00:40The new exhibition at Woodhorn Museum will celebrate the legacy of Critchlow and his
00:44work and the hugely important role he played in documenting the end of Northumberland's
00:48mining history. I spoke with Liz Ritson, Director of Programs and Engagement at Woodhorn Museum.
00:55Woodhorn Museum is a colliery heritage site near Ashenton in Northumberland and it's also
01:01the home of the Pitman Painters, the Ashenton Group collection, and it's a lively, vibrant
01:05museum exploring the social history of south-east Northumberland and our mining heritage.
01:10Yep, so today we're in the process of putting up a new permanent home for the Mick Critchlow
01:17collection and in particular it's his coal town collection. This will be a new permanent
01:23display at the museum, showcasing Mick's work that has particular relevance to Ashington
01:28and to the museum itself, Woodhorn Museum. So Mick Critchlow was born in Ashington and
01:35he spent a remarkable period of time documenting his hometown, starting in the late 1970s but
01:42continuing for over 40 years, documenting the town, people and the members of the community
01:50for a time of really quite great social and political change over that period. We're going
01:55to be able to present these images here at Woodhorn Museum, offering people an insight
02:01not only into his excellent photography but also as a sort of social history document
02:07over that period of time. So Woodhorn Museum already houses the Ashington Group collection,
02:14which many people will know as the Pitman Painters, who were a group of miners who started
02:18painting in the 1930s and they painted their ordinary working lives and home lives, really
02:26up until around the late 1970s, early 1980s. Mick Critchlow actually saw an exhibition
02:33by the Ashington Group of Artists in the late 1970s and it was that that prompted him to
02:39pick up his camera and to choose to document his own hometown for the next 40 years. So
02:46by having both the Ashington Group collection and the Mick Critchlow Coal Town collection
02:51here at Woodhorn, visitors will really get the opportunity to gain insight into the town
02:57over a period of really a 90-year period.