Artist to paint every pub in city to create 'legacy'

An award-winning artist has embarked on a mission to paint every pub in Liverpool in a bid to leave a "legacy".

Gary North, who won Lancashire Artist of the Year in 2025, has already completed about 150 of the 285 estimated pubs in the city.

He said after winning the accolade last year he wanted to focus on "legacy rather than sales".

He told the BBC: "I wanted to do something cool, and I was just going to paint the city as it is and then I didn't want to paint shops, modern shops, but the pubs are just beyond cool, they're fantastic."

Self-taught artist North said the national narrative about the rapid rate of struggling pubs closing permanently did not seem to be holding as true in Liverpool.

"They're like community hubs when you go into them and they're not closing," he said.

He said since his project began only one pub had shut, The Winslow next to Goodison Park, which was largely related to Everton men's football team moving to their new stadium on Bramley Moore Dock.

"The pubs in Liverpool are so old and so historic that they're not gonna close on a trend," he said.

North said he had used different styles for different buildings, from watercolour to impressionistic acrylic paint.

Asked which pubs he had enjoyed painting the most, he said: "There's a couple actually, the Pig and Whistle, I think the landlord's adopted me.

"The Vines is next world, it's just a fantastic pub. The Ship and Mitre, and to paint the Baltic Fleet, you don't realise that to do a certain angle you have to go into the middle of a dual carriageway, which is not advisable, but it's got funnels like a ship, it's fantastic."

He said his intention was to create a "pub crawl of my art" through the city centre to St George's Hall ahead of a beer festival on 24 September.

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