Norman Stansfield Cornish (18 November 1919 – 1 August 2014) was an English mining artist.
Career
Cornish was the last surviving member of the "Pitman's Academy" art school at the
Spennymoor Settlement in
County Durham in
North East England.
A former miner, he was known for his pictures of mining community life. Other artistic contemporaries of Cornish from the Spennymoor Settlement included
Herbert Dees,
Robert Heslop and
Tom McGuinness.
Cornish started work as a miner in 1933, at the age of 14.
He continued to work as a miner even after his painting career was established, until he retired as a miner and became a full-time artist in 1966.
[
Cornish was granted an honorary Master of Arts degree by Newcastle University in 1974,][ and an honorary doctorate by ]Sunderland University
, mottoeng = Sweetly absorbing knowledge
, established = 1901 - Sunderland Technical College1969 - Sunderland Polytechnic1992 - University of Sunderland (gained university status)
, staff =
, chancellor = Emeli ...
in 2012.L. S. Lowry
Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity ...
.[
He was married to Sarah. They had two children, John and Ann.
]
Legacy
To mark the 100th anniversary of Cornish's birth, the Bowes Museum
The Bowes Museum is an art gallery in the town of Barnard Castle, in County Durham in northern England. It was built to designs by Jules Pellechet and John Edward Watson to house the art collection of John Bowes and his wife Joséphine Beno ...
organised the first "major retrospective" of Cornish's work. The exhibition was scheduled to run from November 2019 to February 2020. An exhibition of some of Cornish's 269 sketchbooks was scheduled for display over the same period at Durham University's Palace Green Library.
In 2019, a 'Norman Cornish Trail' was created in Spennymoor to allow people to follow a 1.5 mile route to view many of the scenes painted by Cornish.
References
External links
Artist's website
*
1919 births
2014 deaths
English miners
Pitman painters
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