New home for rare Cornish work
Delight as early Norman Cornish painting donated to university collection. Tony Henderson reports
An early painting offering a rare window into artist Norman Cornish’s development before he left his full-time mining job has been donated to a university collection of his work.
The painting, Colliery Row, was created in 1947 while Norman Cornish was still working as a miner at Dean & Chapter Colliery in Ferryhill and beginning to sketch and paint through the Spennymoor Settlement Sketching Club, which he joined at the age of 16.
It is the earliest work now held in Northumbria University’s collection – one of the most important collections of Cornish’s work in the world – and the only one from this formative period before he became a full-time artist.
The work was gifted to the university by Bryn Morris, a former employee of the British Coal Corporation, who purchased the painting as part of the disposal of British Coal’s remaining art collection at the end of 1997.
Northumbria has a long-standing connection to Cornish and his work. The university’s gallery represented him and displayed his work from 1989 onwards.
Cornish and his wife Sarah gifted eight works to the university in 1991, with two further paintings added by his estate following his death in 2014.
The university holds the Norman Cornish Archive, comprising the artist’s correspondence, painting materials, interviews and other archival material.
The new acquisition comes as more than 50 of Cornish’s sketchbooks, drawn from the university’s collection, are on loan to The Bowes Museum for the exhibition Norman Cornish: A Life in Sketchbooks, which runs until January 3.
Speaking on behalf of the Norman Cornish Estate, Mike Thornton said: “This is a wonderful and rare addition to the permanent collection at Northumbria University.”
Colliery Row is believed to be one of five paintings acquired directly from Cornish by Dr R W Revans, then director of education for the National Coal Board, who saw the work at one of Cornish’s early exhibitions at the Spennymoor Settlement.
Colliery Row was in Trimdon, County Durham, near the home of Cornish’s future wife, Sarah Bartley.
The paintings became part of the National Coal Board’s art collection, displayed at the organisation’s headquarters in Hobart House in London.
Dr Revans went on to organise the landmark Art by the Miner exhibition, held at the Academy Cinema on London’s Oxford Street in October 1947 and opened by the then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.
Cornish was invited to contribute seven works, including Colliery Row. It was during this exhibition that Cornish gave his first live television interview, from the BBC’s studios at Alexandra Palace, now seen as pivotal in his emerging career as an artist.
Colliery Row remained in public ownership through the National Coal Board and its successor, British Coal, until the industry’s privatisation.
The original labels from the 1940s are still on the back of the painting.
Bryn Morris decided the painting should return to its original home in the North East. He said: “Given the North East connection and the fact that the University of Northumbria holds a collection of works by Norman Cornish, including the permanent loan of his papers from the Cornish family, I decided that Northumbria University would be a fitting home and reliable custodian of this important work of art and piece of North East social history.”
Academics and students at Northumbria will now carry out a technical study of the painting. Cornish is known to have often worked on inexpensive, readily available materials such as hardboard, which can present particular conservation challenges.
Dr Richard Mulholland, who teaches on Northumbria’s Conservation of Fine Art MA programme and manages the university art collection, said: “This painting is a remarkable addition to our collection.
“We hold one of the most significant Norman Cornish collections in the world, but until now we’ve had nothing from this very early period, while he was still working as a miner.”