West Midlands Hidden Paintings

This is a programme about art. No, put the remote control away. I'm

not Brian Sewell. The art I am talking about is

hidden paintings we never normally get the chance to see.

Concealed among these paintings is the extraordinary story of the

place where we live and the people who lived here that led the world

into a new industrial age. It is the story of an extraordinary

transformation, but it is also one of forgotten heroes, jealousy and

murder. So join me, as we discover the

In the days when the Midlands was the centre of the industrial world,

a few artists turned their attention to the new and dramatic

What these paintings give us today is a remarkable and striking

insight into a region and its people being transformed by the

arrival of heavy industry. It is an incredible record of our

industrial heritage, but not one which is easy to see, because,

strange as it may seem, many of these paintings are hidden away

from view. But I am going to seek Our journey begins at a place where

you will always find tremendous industry and great artistry. It is,

of course, here, the Britannia Stadium, home to Stoke City FC.

OK, there may be some of you who do not agree, but just bear with me,

because inside the stadium is an example of one of these hundreds of

hidden-away paintings, which also gives us our first insight into our

industrial past. For the chairman of the football

club, the painting serves as a constant reminder of Stoke City's

roots. I know that it is not owned by the

club, how is it that it came to be here?

We have it on loan, for which we pay, from the local art gallery and

I think it is rather a nice painting and a good reflection of

where we are and who we are. Your heritage is important, isn't

it? It is important for us all, wherever you are from. It is a

reminder to us that we should never forget what we are about, where we

are from and who we are. I don't think people appreciate

just how many potteries there actually were across the area.

The pottery industry is Stoke-on- Trent, isn't it? That is us. And

there was a lot of it. It is a vanishing landscape.

Most of the old pottery factories have long since disappeared and

that is what makes this painting by William Cartledge important as a

historical record. This is what the location in the

painting looks like today. There is only one surviving pot

bank working alongside the canal and a short trip in a narrowboat

takes you there, to Middleport, near Burslem.

Of course, there are some features we can see here which are not in

the painting - the wooden smoking shelter, the Portaloos and the

industrial historian. I wonder if you could explain what

is going on in the picture, using this as your aid?

Boats would have brought the materials down to be taken into the

pottery factories to be made into pots. They would come on to the

wharf here and unload the potters' materials - clay, china stone.

That looks like snow, doesn't it, but it is a putty material?

Yes, and they would have been loaded straight from the wharf into

the factory. Pottery factories, like this and

the one in the painting, began to dramatically change the Midlands

landscape and artists were on hand to document this transformation.

This was predominently a rural area and it changed very quickly, didn't

Just half a mile from here, Wedgwood built his first factory.

There is a very famous painting, painted by Pratt in about 1850,

which shows a view of it from the bank.

It shows a lovely, green, rural area, with just a few bits of

industrial works in the middle of them.

It is really only in the second half of the 19th century that the

huge urban sprawl, and all the terraces that were associated with

the huge expansion of pottery manufacture arrived.

When that happened, the six towns slowly merged into each other and

became, eventually, Stoke on Trent. Right across the Midlands, it was

the same story - fields, farms and forests making way for factories

and foundries. Nowhere was that change as profound as here at

Ironbridge. This is where the industrial

revolution began and this painting, Coalbrookdale By Night, which is

held by the Science Museum in London, captures a time when a

beautiful Shropshire river valley was turned into an industrial

powerhouse, filled with furnaces So why did the industrial

revolution start in the Midlands? The answer lies underground in the

resources - the iron, the coal, the clay - essential for the emerging

industries. But the region also had the

pioneers: The Abraham Darby dynasty, the first ironmasters, in

Shropshire. Josiah Wedgwood and the pottery owners of Staffordshire.

And here in Birmingham, James Watt and Matthew Boulton, bringing big

advances in steam power. But there is one other important

pioneer who's often forgotten. I am told you can see him in a portrait

held by Birmingham Art Gallery...if you can find it, that is.

The fact he is difficult to find really reinforces his status as a

forgotten figure of the industrial revolution. The that is definitely

not him. I'm told to look through here.

This is a corridor mostly used by city councillors and officials, but

it is open to the public if you are on official business - or if you

ask nicely. Nope, it nope. And here he is - our forgotten hero,

William Murdoch. The industrial revolution would not

have turned very far without the steam engines developed by Watt and

Boulton. But many inventions which they

patented were actually the work of Murdoch.

The oscillating engine and the sun and planet gear may not mean much

to us now, but in the 19th century, they were cutting-edge technologies.

You can also thank Murdoch for developing gas lighting, used first

in factories and then in homes. And that, of course, led to another

innovation of the modern age - the gas bill.

Murdoch has been hidden away in this corridor for longer than

anyone here can remember. But that is about to change. Just as I found

him, he is going to be taken away. Where is he going to? He is going

to a more fitting location. There are no fault of dignitaries here,

but he does not seem to fit that bill? Yes, he was not really

classed as a gentleman back in the 18th century.

Murdoch is being taken a couple of miles up the road to Soho house,

home of Matthew Boulton, and the famous meeting place of the Lunar

Society, an informal club which brought together the A-list of

industrials and intellectuals of the time. A it was a famous group

of friends who were all in to art and science and experimentation.

They used to meet. Murdoch was not a member, however, because he was

not of the same social standing. This is where you will find the

portrait now, no longer tucked away and ignored. After being excluded

for so long, Murdoch is not only in Boulton's house, he is practically

in his bed. It was not just people like Murdoch

who struggled to get the recognition they deserved. There

was another important group of people...

Those countless other forgotten heroes - the workers.

I have come to the cellars of the Dudley Art Gallery to find some of

the earliest images of the industrial workplace.

These etchings by RS Chattock, held by Dudley Art Gallery, capture some

of the brutal realities of the conditions in which people worked

in the 1870s. People like members of the Lunar

Society may have come up with all the bright ideas, but it was the

blood, sweat and tears of Midlands workers that really made the

industrial revolution happen. I am now on my way to Wolverhampton

Art Gallery where, hidden away from view, are paintings of just what

those workers went through. But first, I am picking up two

well-known local figures, the Mayor of Wolverhampton, Bert Turner, and

local historian, Ron Davies, who worked at Bilston Steelworks, until

production stopped in 1979. Thank you for joining us, gentleman. What

was it like when you first arrived at the factory? They it was the

largest works in the Midlands. was a different world back then.

worked in the sport here. This is all houses now, but there was works

back then. Do you think that something has been lost or has

something better happened? A it will never come back, of whatever

happens. It is sad, really. It employed so many people in here and

all round the area. People stayed friends for life to work in that

steelworks. It was like one big family.

Men like Burt and Ron are among the last of Bilston's metal workers.

But 100 years ago, the men and women who came before them were

captured on canvas by Wolverhampton The Butler Bayliss family had grown

wealthy through a metal bashing business that produced gates and

fences. His industrial paintings are currently locked away in the

vaults. Even though they are from an

earlier time, Butler Bayliss' paintings immediately bring back

vivid memories. This one brings particular memories. It brings back

more of childhood memories, because it when you were a child, used to

look up and see that. This one looks really alive. This must bring

back a lot of memories? There was no electric light and the

atmosphere was there. You could paint the atmosphere. That looks

like drudgery. We had a much happier time and what that is.

Yes, that looks like a lady, with a big hit the sack over her shoulder.

How do you feel when you look at these? Is there a sense of sadness

or a sense of nostalgia? Now we've been round this morning and seeing

what there is there and how it provided jobs for people and houses

for people, although it is better for the area as a whole, because

the one thing we have lost is all the smoke and smog. The ear is much

cleaner and more healthy. But I suppose you would like a bit of the

best of both worlds? Yes, you have got it in one.

From the early potteries to the height of the steel industry,

Midlands manufacturing never stood still and at the start of the 20th

century, a brand-new invention was about to become the region's next

big thing. It was called the motor This is an early Armstrong Siddely,

one of 138 car manufacturers that grew up in Coventry alone. It

demonstrates that industry in the region was about a lot more than

bashing metal. It was about skilled engineering and precision craftwork.

You might not think that to see me driving.

Back then, the car was something worth painting and an Armstrong

Siddeley like this featured in a painting which I'm going to seek

The Enchanted Road, by Frank Salisbury, which is in store at the

Herbert Art Gallery, captures the freedom that this new form of

transport could offer. We know that the woman driving the car or is the

daughter of Lord Kenilworth. He was the owner of the very large motor

car company and she is driving one of the cards. What sort of state

with the industry in then? It was a growing industry. We had just come

out of the First World War and a lot of factories where going back

into normal manufacture from armaments. Does the way she is

driving tell us anything about the attitudes to motoring? The motor

car was seen as something you could get in and get out and about and

explore the countryside and a way you could not have done before from

the likes of the train for example. I and is there the slight aspect of

emancipation in this? Yes, because there were a lot of women who

started it been more adventurous in this respect - a lot of female

drivers and Air Pilots for example. The car continued to be an

inspiration for artists for a good 50 years after the scene captured

in the Enchanted Road. This is clearly a very different type of

picture. This is clearly a different time that as well? He yes,

this is the mid- 1950s and her looks like case-study portrait. It

is an ear of we are fantastic cars were being made, going from family

cars right up to the luxury fast cars like Jaguars and Alfa Romeos.

Compared to the other one, you now have families travelling in cars.

It is the different type of aspiration now? Yes, although

although it is a family car, or they are still eat well or family.

What is also noticeable is that the women and now relegated to the back

seat. What this says to me is that if you buy a car, a man in a

uniform with white gloves will open the door for you.

But it was not just the car that gave people a new-found freedom. As

the Midlands got richer, more working class people had

opportunities to choose a career path away from the factory floor.

And here at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, I have discovered

one dramatic example of how working life was transformed.

This is Dolly Henry, an Irish girl who modelled clothes at a

department store in London's Regent Street. She also modelled for

artists. This portrait, from 1912, is called Head of a Girl and she is

clearly a coy, demure young woman. But this is Dolly just a year later.

This portrait is called The Witch and she has suddenly become evil

and devious, at least in the eyes of the artist. So who is he, this

artist? And why was there such a spectacular change in the way he

looked upon Dolly? I'm going in search of him in the

gallery storeroom, with help from curator Jean Milton.

Here he is, John Currie, from Newcastle-under-Lyme. He is just an

ordinary working man, the son of an Irish navvy, who gave up a job at

Minton's Pottery, to become a full- time artist. He spent some time at

the far factory and from there he went to art school and got a

scholarship to the Royal School of Art. He was supported by two very

wealthy benefactors and he did make quite a good living. How did he

make that jump from working in a factory to becoming an artist?

lot of the local factories did support artists, in the same way

the supported other apprentices. They were very supportive of the

artists, but I think the intention was to keep them local. How did he

come to meet the lady in the picture? I am not quite sure how

the Net, but they clearly had quite a tortured all of a fair.

She was, "Lascivious and possessive to the last degree. Her lure for

men was irresistible and Currie was, of course, utterly enslaved to her

physical attraction." There were going to be fireworks in this

relationship, went the? Yes, he had a wife and child in Newcastle. This

is believed to be a painting of his way. His wife.

So Currie had to choose between his wife and Dolly. He chose Dolly. It

was a decision that proved fatal. To find out what happens next, I

have come to the Sentinel Building, home of the local newspaper.

I'm in the newspaper archive and this is a cutting from October,

1914. This looks like this is the one. Newcastle artist and his model

were found shot in a wilful murder and suicide. The first witness

would appeal to be her mother. Have you seen your daughter recently?

Yes, she could not continue to live with them because of his treatment.

He was knocking her about. The next evidence, the evidence from Mrs

Currie, the coroner says to her, what was his temperament? Was he a

passionate man? Yes, he was very passionate. Why did you stop living

together? Because he had found another woman. In another report,

it appears that she was Dade and he was found with the gunshot win, but

still alive. According to the rumours at the time, he was not

jealous because she was seeing another man.

According to the gossip at the time, Currie had flown into a jealous

rage, not because he thought she was seeing someone else, but

because he believed she had posed for pornographic photos.

It makes you wonder if he would have been better off staying at

Minton's. So Dolly and Currie's turbulent

relationship came to a sad end. And what happened to the industrial

world they came from was sadder still. In the second half of the

20th century, much of the Midlands' heavy industry went into terminal

decline. The decay and dereliction that has

been left behind is the subject of paintings that have been stored

away, until recently, at Dudley Art Gallery. We are getting a sneak

preview of them. What I like about them is that although the

industries are clearly in its decline, there is a certain pride

that in these paintings. The old heavy industry may have all

but disappeared, but we do still make things in the Midlands.

And today, the new industrial scene is being recorded by artists. There

is one up there. This is Robert Perry and he has

turned his camper van into a mobile studio, complete with painting

perch. You must have been asked this before - what are you doing up

there? I wanted to paint panoramic views of this area and this gives

me an excess of tremendous views there would be otherwise

inaccessible. I am fascinated by the incredible diversity of the

landscape. Although we call it the Black Country, it is amazing how

much can mean that there is in there. But you see the houses, the

warehouses and in a way it is more interesting than being on the top

of a hill, where it is clearly just greenery for miles around.

In here is everything an artist needs on the road. Places to keep

the paints and the canvases. The work surface here is also his bed.

And here is a baguette holder. Rob has been painting this view

from Oldnall Hill in Lye for more than 20 years ago. This is an early

work which you can see if you are ever in the Mayor of Dudley's

parlour. It will be going on display, as part of an exhibition,

appropriately called The Big Picture. Do you think it is

important to precis of the scene for posterity? I think it is

important to make a historical landscape of the place itself, but

you also are capturing a particular instance in time. It is the very

complex structure that you build up. I do not have delusions of grandeur

about posterity. In a way, I am recording it for my own purposes. I

just like to try and understand the landscape and if other people can

relate to it, that is great. The paintings we have discovered

are not just important because of their artistic merit.

They are important because they are a record of a disappearing world.

And we should be grateful that, in the midst of the sound and fury of

the industrial age, a few reflective souls took their time