NORMAN CORNISH MBE
Born in 1919, in Spennymoor, County Durham, Norman Stansfield Cornish was 65 when he was persuaded to write his autobiography. He called it ‘A Slice of Life’ and indeed it was just that - although one could say that it was brought into being a little prematurely given that a further three decades of remarkable activity were to follow its publication. Sid Chaplin, his fellow miner and alumnus of the ‘Pitman’s Academy’ at Spennymoor vividly described in a memorable ‘Guardian’ article of 1960 the ‘Narrow World’ that Cornish had created. ‘Cornish’s narrow world has two poles, two extremes’ he maintained. ‘On the daylight side are pigeon crees and allotments, pit rows and pubs, fish and chip vans and market stalls, men carrying banners he himself designed. Time is defeated; the demolished houses, the dying woman, are there in paint. The derelict is whole again. The living are caught before they go; the pigeon fanciers, corner-enders, off-shift miners squatting on their hunkers and soaking in the sunshine and the good crack. In a moment the bus will come and the buzzer blow for the backshift. Now it is all recorded, time cannot take away the seven ages of man and woman - his grandmother, sister, wife and daughter; or his father and brothers, his friends and pit marras. Soon the baby will be a small boy; he will change, a drawing or painting is a shot against time.’
“I made drawings of pub workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing at the bar drinking and talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life.” Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish remains one of the most celebrated artists in Britain, and particularly the North East, of the 20th Century, his images of common working life resonating strongly with those who grew up in mining and industrial communities around the UK. Later in life, he became renowned for his use of Flo-Master marker pens as a drawing medium, their quick and immediate lines allowing his to make bold drawings from life on site in pubs, houses, streets, and factories. His paintings, drawings and prints are held in numerous important national and private collections, commanding high prices for prized pieces from keen collectors.
AVAILABLE WORKS
Norman Cornish MBE
Man at Table
Flo-master pen on paper
40 x 42 cm
Framed
This work is signed and titled by the artist.
“I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and clubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life.” Norman Cornish
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Norman Cornish MBE
Twelve Heads, Spennymoor Bowling Club
Flo-master pen on paper
42 x 49 cm
Framed
This work is signed and titled by the artist.
“I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and clubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life.” Norman Cornish
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Norman Cornish MBE
Men Playing Dominoes
Limited edition gicleé print, unframed
Now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner. Not previously framed.
Signed and numbered, edition of 100
20 x 29cm (image)
“I made drawings of pub workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing at the bar drinking and talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life.” Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
‘This special world of mine is constantly changing and many of the people who inhabited in are no longer with us. Many of the places that once helped to make up that world have also passed into time.
The local collieries have gone too, together with the pit-road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. Many of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequented these places are gone.
However, in my memory and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’
-Norman Cornish
includes: foreword by Mara-Helen Wood, Director of Collections, The Lost World of Norman Cornish essay by William Varley, quotes from Norman Cornish, many sketches, photographs, drawings and paintings, chronology
Paperback, 29 x 26.5cm
194 pages (159 full colour illustration)
Published by Northumbria University Gallery, Newcastle
ISBN 0-947940-41-3
Softback, 160 pages
Edited by Mara-Helen Wood, with essays by William Feaver, William Varley, Michael Chaplin and Dr Gail-Nina Anderson
134 full colour illustrations
235 x 197mm, ISBN 9780947940218
Norman Cornish 1919 – 2014, set himself the task of recording what it was like to live in Spennymoor, a small mining town in north east England in the middle of the 20th century. He had little interest in anywhere else and the focus of his gaze has been sharp, true and unblinking.
At the age of fourteen he began his working life as a miner at the Dean and Chapter Colliery and at sixteen he joined the Spennymoor Sketching Club, that enlightened educational and cultural project of the late 1930’s that enabled a rich broadening of his artistic horizons. On his tutor Bill Farrell’s advice, that he could do no better than paint the life he knew, he chronicled an entire way of life. Without diminishing the harsh realities of life and work, his paintings create a sense of time and place by depicting the lyrical qualities of his surroundings in which time is defeated.
Sid Chaplin, his fellow miner and alumnus of the Pitman’s Academy at Spennymoor vividly described in a memorable ‘Guardian’ article of 1960 the ‘Narrow World’ that Cornish had created “…the living are caught before they go; the pigeon fanciers, corner-enders, off-shift miners … In a moment the bus will come and the buzzer blow for the backshift. Now it is all recorded, time cannot take away the seven ages of man and women – his grandmother, mother, sisters, wife and daughter; or his father and brothers, his friends and pit marras. Soon the baby will be a small boy: he will change: a drawing or painting is a shot against time.”
Illustrated with many early paintings and drawings, the accompanying essays provide a fascinating insight into the artistic, cultural and social developments taking place in the post war years while Cornish was emerging to become one of the region’s most respected artists.
Paperback, 92 pages
Autobiography by Norman Cornish
209 x 165mm, ISBN 9780947940959
Norman Cornish (1919 – 2014), was 70 when he was persuaded by his family and friends, to write his autobiography. He called it ‘A Slice of Life’ and indeed it was just that although one could say that it was a little premature given that a further two decades of remarkable activity were to follow its publication.
Apprenticed at the age of 14, at the Dean and Chapter Colliery, also known as the Butcher’s Shop, he spent the next 33 years working mostly underground at various pits in the region. At approximately the same time that he made his first decent into the pit he discovered the Spennymoor Sketching Club, which he thought was “wonderful”. There, he met Bill Farrell, Warden of the Spennymoor Settlement, who advised him to paint the life he knew, which he did compulsively thereafter.
In the prologue to ‘A Slice of Life’, he describes the Dean and Chapter Colliery as “lying at the foot of a huge pit-heap which reminds one of a volcano, not only because of how it looks but also because its contents have been spewed out of the depths in similar fashion.” Imaginative and poetic perceptions are present throughout his paintings and drawings, which might reasonably claim to be his autobiography, but this book is invaluable as a reminder of Cornish’s protean struggle to become an artist.
Reflecting on his life and work he wrote, “This special world of mine is constantly changing and many of the people who inhabited it are no longer with us. Many of the places that once helped to make up that world have also passed into time. I think of the houses I once lived in, that I grew up in, that my early married life was spent in and that my children were born in, but they’re all gone… The local collieries have gone too, together with the pit-road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. Many of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequented these places are gone. However, in my memory and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I close my eyes and they all spring to life.”
Norman Cornish MBE
Dog Talk
Reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Man Walking Dog on Edward Street
Reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner. Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Pit Gantry Steps
reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Busy Bar
Offset lithographic reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
39.5 x 19.5cm
Mounted in conservation mountboard (image middle shelf)
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
A Tired Pit Pony
reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Pit Road With Telegraph Pole
Reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner. Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard (image top left)
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Pit Road Near a Colliery in Winter
Reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation mountboard (image bottom right)
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Pit Road
Reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
Mounted in conservation board (bottom left image)
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Spennymoor Snow Scene
Offset lithographic reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner.Not previously framed.
40 x 27cm
Mounted in conservation mountboard (image top right)
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Jenny at the Bar
Offset lithographic reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner. Not previously framed.
25 x 32cm
Mounted in conservation mountboard
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
Gallagher & Turner welcome approaches by clients wishing to sell works by Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
University Gallery New Acquisitions Poster
Very rare 1997 original exhibition poster
Offset lithographic reproduction print, now in very limited numbers originally produced in agreement with Norman Cornish and the University Gallery, Northumbria for exhibitions with Norman Cornish between 1989 and 2009 and since acquired by Gallagher & Turner. Not previously framed.
59 x 74cm
Backed with conservation mountboard and wrapped in cellophane
Please ask us about framing options
’I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and pubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life’ - Norman Cornish
More information about Norman Cornish
Norman Cornish MBE
Rapid Sketch of Man
Flo-master pen on paper
51 x 41 cm
Framed
This work is signed and titled by the artist.
““I made drawings of workers in days past because I was fascinated by the men standing talking, or sitting playing dominoes. I was attracted by the wonderful shapes that they make in their varied attitudes. I also realised that life would change in some ways. The local collieries have gone, together with the pit road. Many of the old streets, chapels and clubs are no more. A large number of the ordinary but fascinating people who frequent these places are gone. However, in my memory, and I hope in my drawings, they live on. I simply close my eyes and they all spring to life.” Norman Cornish
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