Art By Pitman Painter Norman Cornish Expected To Make Over £50,000 At Auction

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Eight of the celebrated mining artist's pictures will form part of Newcastle auctioneers Anderson and Garland's Fine Art and Antiques sale from 18-21 June.

The assortment features some of Cornish’s most sought after early work, including 'Colliery at night: Pit road' valued at £15k and 'Man and his dog', estimated at £9k.

There is also a gouache on newspaper called 'Pit road' providing another perspective of the painter’s daily walk to and from the Dean and Chapter Colliery in Spennymoor, where he worked.

John Bullock-Anderson at Anderson and Garland said: "Norman Cornish is without doubt the North East’s greatest living artist of pitmatic paintings and here we have some excellent examples of his work.

"Three of the paintings come from The Stone Gallery in Newcastle where Cornish was first discovered, which immediately provides a clear provenance and significantly increases their value.

"Cornish has always painted similar compositions and the beauty of his pictures is that he captures what he sees without sentimentality but also without depicting things as being 'grim up North'.

"It’s a fine line but one that he succeeds in achieving every time – you can see that the work is painted with affection for his environment, a community that he has never left."

Simon Marshall now runs The Stone Gallery, which was founded by his father in the mid 1950s.