Thomas Bewick and The Bewick Society
Thomas Bewick remains one of the North East’s most important artists, an engraver, naturalist and illustrator whose work transformed the possibilities of wood engraving. Born at Cherryburn in 1753 and later working in Newcastle, his images of birds, animals and everyday life combined extraordinary technical skill with close observation, humour and a deep connection to the landscape around him. The Bewick Society continues to champion that legacy, promoting greater understanding of his life and work, supporting research and collections, and encouraging new generations to engage with wood engraving and the remarkable visual language he developed.
That legacy has a particularly strong connection to Orbis Community. Our studios and many of the places we work with sit within the same wider landscape of Gateshead, Newcastle and the Tyne that shaped Bewick’s own life. There is also a remarkable direct connection through West Street in Gateshead, where Bewick lived during the later years of his life and where one of Orbis Community’s studios is now based. It is from this studio that much of our own printmaking and Bewick-inspired work is developed. More than two centuries apart, the same part of Gateshead continues to be a place for artists exploring image-making, print, process and new ways of interpreting the world around them.
For Jonpaul Kirvan, the connection began much earlier. As a child and young artist, he regularly studied Bewick’s images and regarded them simply as an exceptional way of drawing, long before fully understanding that the marks he admired were created through engraving. That early fascination has continued throughout his adult creative practice and has influenced an extraordinary range of projects, from illustration and print to laser engraving, public workshops and participatory work.
Rather than simply reproducing Bewick’s imagery, the aim has been to explore how his spirit of observation, experimentation and skilled making can continue through contemporary processes. Jonpaul has created laser-engraved works that combine Bewick’s original birds with contemporary images of places from across the region, using new technology to continue a conversation with a much older method of making. There is always an interesting question at the centre of this work: if Thomas Bewick were working today, what tools would he explore? His career was built around curiosity, technical development and finding new ways to communicate through images, and it is difficult not to imagine him experimenting with processes such as laser cutting alongside the traditional tools of engraving.
That influence has also become woven through Orbis Community’s wider public programme. Working with printmaker Mick Wootton and other artists within the community, Bewick-inspired printmaking, stamps, small illustrations and simple forms of mark-making have appeared throughout Gateshead Creative Crawl trails, workshops and events. The intention is not to make heritage feel remote or specialist, but to give anyone, from a child making their first print to an experienced artist developing new work, a way into it. Projects with Gateshead Library, Shipley Art Gallery, St Mary’s by the Tyne, Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust, schools, colleges, universities and artists in residence have all provided opportunities to carry that influence into new settings.
For Orbis Community, keeping Bewick’s legacy alive means more than looking back at the work he produced. It means allowing his approach to continue generating new ideas. By bringing his imagery and methods into workshops, contemporary design, printmaking, digital processes and public projects, we can connect an extraordinary part of the North East’s artistic heritage with the people creating here today, and encourage another generation to look closely, experiment, make their own mark and discover what might come next.
