Image: Bradford Museums and Galleries
‘Far Westfield, Haworth Moor’ is a painting by the locally-born artist, Joseph (Joe) Pighills and is in the Bradford Museum and Galleries Service. Joe was to paint this same scene on a number of occasions, including in watercolour, but this version is painted in oils on board and measures 59.5 x 86.5 cm. Joe Pighills was pleased with this painting and had many prints made from it.
It features an isolated farm on Haworth Moor depicted with the setting sun in the background. Joe Pighill’s talent as an artist was to catch the rapidly changing sky moods on the Haworth moors. When asked by a journalist in 1974 why he never painted a clear blue sky, Pighills replied:
“Look at today. Clouds is doing nothing. It’s mostly them times when it’s going to rain or it’s just given up raining ‘at you want to paint out theer. I paint off mi feelings and say summat about what’s going on – more about what’s going on nor about t’subject itself. When it’s really grand weather, what you might call fit for painting, you get out there and t’subject has flown.”
In this painting the sky is magnificently captured with many shades of grey, blue, green, as well as orange and white. A track leads the eye of the viewer into the scene, and the isolation of the cottage is emphasized by the vastness of the moor, with no people to be seen, but a few sheep are shown scattered near the farm building. The moor is depicted using a range of grey, green, and brown shades, lightened by the whiteness in parts of the track.
The wind is blowing the clouds toward the left of the painting. This sense of movement is reinforced by the twisted shape of the low tree, centre, and left-leaning stones on the wall in the foreground.
The Artist
Joseph (Joe) Pighills (1901-1984) was one the finest landscape painters from the Bradford district. He was born at Marsh, a small hamlet above Oxenhope, and lived there all his life. A full profile of him can be found at PIGHILLS, Joseph (Joe) – Not Just Hockney