A NEW collection of work by local artist James Hargreaves Morton has gone on show at the Darwen library.

More than 40 pen and pencil drawings of the highways and byways around Darwen and Tockholes, as well as sketches of several family members. are on show in the main library and in the reference room.

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Most of them are dated between 1906 and 1910 when Morton had returned from teaching in Darlington determined to carve out a career as a post-Impressionist.

Soon afterwards his work was being exhibited throughout the North and in London and his career was blossoming when war broke out.the Great War came.

He was killed just a few days before the end of the conflict and his life’s work was saved by his sisters till the death of the last of them, Alice, in 1967.

Four years later The entire collection was sold and the drawings now on display were in sketch books bought by Darwen solicitor Edwin Yates.

His son Gerry, who lives in Keighley, has loaned them to the Friends of Darwen Library who have organised the exhibition.

The group’s secretary Kath Farnworth: “They are wonderful. I could look at them all day trying to work out how anyone could make something look so realistic with seemingly just a few squiggles.”