Peter Lidington artwork on show at Newcastle's Digitalab gallery

May 9 2009 by Paul James, The Journal

Peter Lidington Flower

NINE years ago artist Peter Lidington died on the day his unique work was due to be shown for the first time.

The graphic designer was producing teaching aids at Newcastle University’s medical school in the 1970s when one day he asked a radiographer to take an X-ray of a flower.

Inspired by the results, from that day on he set about perfecting the art and created hundreds of pictures, revealing nature as it had never been seen before.

On the day his wife Sue was preparing to take his work to a gallery, Peter, having fought kidney cancer and been on a dialysis machine, tragically died.

But Sue refused to let his work die with him and gave up her teaching career to take Peter’s pictures across the country. She has now returned her late husband’s unique art to the city he called home.

The exhibition has gone on show at Newcastle’s Digitalab gallery in the Ouseburn Valley, which is also bringing together nearly all of Peter’s work for the first time. Sue, who uses the gallery to produce prints of Peter’s work, came to see the show from her home in Coniston, Cumbria.

She said: “Peter used to design post-graduate teaching programmes. One day, just out of interest, he took a rose from his garden into the university and persuaded a radiographer to put it under an X-ray machine. He got a lovely image.

“It stayed in his mind that one day he would love to see what he could do with this. He taught himself photography and then found somewhere he could take the X-rays. They’re beautiful. They can be done in all sorts of different sizes, and unlike photography the bigger you do them the better they get.