The first biography of one of the North East’s best-known artists. Written by well-known local art historian and author Marshall Hall, it tells of how the Newcastle-born artist acquired his nickname by wearing his weatherproof oilskins to paint the local coastline in the wildest of climatic conditions

The first biography of one of the North East’s best-known artists. Written by well-known local art historian and author Marshall Hall, and titled John Falconar Slater – The North East’s Weatherproof Artist, it tells of how the Newcastle-born artist acquired his nickname by wearing his weatherproof oilskins to paint the local coastline in the wildest of climatic conditions. At a time when artists on the Continent were increasingly succumbing to the attractions of open-air painting, leading to their identification as “Impressionists”, a North East artist had been independently practising it for several years, and in weather conditions rarely tackled by its followers in France and elsewhere.