In the exhibition at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, we can see the wide range of landscapes that interested artist Richard Hobson, from the bleak but beautiful moorlands of the North Pennines to ship repair yards at the mouth of the River Tyne.
Richard Hobson (1945-2004)
Richard Hobson was born in Derby but came to live in Newcastle when he was young as his family relocated to Newcastle. Richard grew up in Heaton, where he also went to school. His father was a lecturer at Durham University who wrote guidebooks on Northumberland and a young Richard was able to show off his talent by drawing illustrations for these books. Hobson then attended Art College in Newcastle and spent some time working in London, before moving to the Cairngorms to take up a job as a warden, he loved being close to nature especially birds and continued to paint.
The great turning point for Richard came when he studied for a diploma in the conservation of easel paintings at Gateshead College. Through this he was able to find employment at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle where he would work for 31 years. Richard loved being a conservator and was able to work with some of the greatest artworks in the world while at employed there.
Northumbrian artist Birtley Aris (1927 – 2021) was a great inspiration to Richard and also a great friend. Aris said this about Richard: “He captured the essence of the northern landscape expressing the bleakness and the beauty without going for the simply picturesque”.
Richard sadly died young at the age of 59 in 2004 but by then had been able to produce a substantial body of work which records important parts of our social and industrial history in the North.
Aris said this of Hobson’s work: “His work will always have an historical interest in addition to an aesthetic quality.”
The exhibition
In the exhibition at South Shields, we can see the wide range of landscapes that interested Hobson, from the bleak but beautiful moorlands of the North Pennines to ship repair yards at the mouth of the River Tyne. Hobson’s work in this exhibition is particularly important to us in the North East as it catches a world that is now lost, but which was captured by Hobson just before it was lost. We can well see the dilapidated remains of what was once the industrial might of our region. Hobson also recorded the wonderful natural world of the North Country which of which we can also be so proud of.
Hobson often went into the countryside to paint accompanied by his son Harry and his wife Alice. While remembering Richard this year his wife Pat remarked: “his love of art it was intrinsic it came from deep within him. He lived for his art, absolutely no question about that.”
Richard Hobson wrote this in 1999: “The industrial north, the River Tyne in industrial decline, its steep sided banks and aerial perspectives seeking out natural rhythms, tensions with the landscape i.e. the interface between the old rural and the new imposed industrial landscape.
Monolithic primary-coloured cranes, the strong coffin/sarcophagus shapes of the dry docks themselves and the ever-present herring gull, which I use as a metaphor for the change on the river is both predator and survivor.
The grey cold North East coast in winter is my preferred time it is from direct observation working rapidly within the landscape using fluid colour to express the feeling of damp space of sea and beach the otherwise fluid environment is usually punctuated with the geometric shapes of the tank traps and pipes. It is this richness which motivates a search for an expressive visual language.”
My review
The exhibition presents the viewer with an intriguing mixture of rural and industrial landscapes. It is also one in quite a long line of interesting art exhibitions, which remind us of our industrial past, just as we are struggling to find a sustainable and positive way forward, with a just transition to a carbon neutral or carbon free economy, with good well-paid jobs in the green economy.
The exhibition also reminds us of the North East, where few people live; the Pennines and the Northumberland moors, the sublime, beautiful landscape on our doorstep.
It is also worth remembering that much of the coalfield was a mixture of rural and urban, with pit villages scattered over much of County Durham and Southeast Northumberland, where people were engaged in heavy industry, while essentially living in urban outposts surrounded by countryside.
It is quite feasible to make the case that the Northern Spirit was forged by these two different landscapes and the interaction between people and said landscapes. In that respect we can see the importance of liminal spaces, where the rural and urban meet. This has long been something that fascinates me, especially in the North Pennines; the site of a lonely chimney, near to where a lead mine was, or the wonderful road that takes you from Eggleston to Woodland on the way from Middleton-in -Teesdale to Bishop Auckland, where the mixture of old industry and even older natural beauty is only too apparent.
Spirit of the North East: The art of Richard Hobson, a retrospective is currently on display at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery.
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