In Search of Wuthering Heights in Hertfordshire

The Broadway Gallery, in Letchworth Garden City, will host a new exhibition entitled “In Search of Wuthering Heights” (10 January until 4 February 2024) by area painter Mike Rollins starting today. Featuring landscapes and architectural studies, the series reconstructs the buildings and rugged regional scenery of West Yorkshire that shaped Emily Brontë's creative vision for her 1847 novel Wuthering Heights.

On the gallery website, an interview with the artist can be found:

What will you be displaying at the gallery?

I’m going to be displaying work that focuses on Emily Brontë. I started painting this series in 2018, the 200th anniversary of her birth, as I wanted to commemorate both her life and her novel, Wuthering Heights.

The two main settings of the story, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange were inspired by numerous buildings and landscapes in West Yorkshire. Some have become tourist favourites, such as Top Withens on Haworth Moor, whilst others have been sadly demolished. I wanted to create a body of work that reconstructed some of these buildings as they were at the time of the Brontës, adding my own take on their stories.

Who or what are some of your artistic influences?

(...) But certainly, growing up, I’ve been influenced more by literary figures, like the Brontë sisters and Ted Hughes. I love the atmosphere they create, and I think that’s because I grew up in West Yorkshire surrounded by the moors, deep valleys and black stone walls. Ted Hughes’ poetry creates images in my mind because of the way he describes the landscape. It’s just very emotive, guttural, and visual. Emily Brontë’s work really captured my imagination and, again, it’s her use of language to describe the weather and landscape. In Wuthering Heights, the Yorkshire moors and buildings become characters, just as much as Heathcliff and Cathy. More than anyone, it’s the Brontë sisters’ lives that have inspired me, especially because they lived and worked so close to where I grew up.

On the artist's website, we also found some additional information:

 The showcase includes a short interview in which I talk about my art career, my influences and direction.

In conjunction with the show, Rollins is selling packs of postcards featuring paintings of key sites tied to Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights. Capturing additional locales that shaped the beloved novel, the vivid postcards allow fans to take away a piece of the evocative landscape and architecture that inspired one of literature’s greatest works.