Norman Cornish - "A self portrait of a thought" - now live online
28th October, 2024
Live online now, doors open 9th November
Our fourth major Norman Cornish exhibition, in conjunction with the Cornish family/estate, is now live online. It may be seen in full through our exhibition page or a page-turning digital version of the catalogue may also be viewed. Doors will open to the physical exhibition on Saturday 9th November, and it will continue until 30th November.
Thirty-five never before seen or available works
The exhibition showcases thirty-five never-before-seen or available paintings and drawings by Norman, spanning the 1940s to the 1980s. Since we began representing the Cornish estate in 2015, we’ve seen a continued growth of interest in Norman’s work; recognition and appreciation of his art long since moved beyond “mining and flat caps” and is now seen firmly in the context of it being a social history record of a working-class community, as relevant in London, Bristol and Swansea as it is in his hometown of Spennymoor, County Durham. These communities, or the inherent nature of them and what made them truly communities, has now largely been lost, Norman’s record is just that, an important record of the people and places that comprised those communities.
Portraits of a community
We see many portraits, folks reading, drinking, playing, even embroidering, the former captured quickly in one of the dozens of pubs that populated Spennymoor, and most British towns of those decades. Norman would go for a pint of an evening, newspaper, sketchbook and pen in hand, sitting and observing, drawing; “pay no mind, it’s just Norman”, everyone accepted him, he was one of them, until 1966 a miner as most were in Spennymoor, but a miner with a true talent for observation and capturing life around him, be it at work, on the way to work, at leisure or in the home.
"A self portrait of a thought"
Norman once said that his art was effectively a self-portrait of a thought. We’ve sought to curate an exhibition that captures those thoughts, those observations, what was important to Norman and what he sought to capture, knowing full well, and often asserting, that the world was changing and he saw it as his job to capture his world before it disappeared for good. He got that right.
In the flesh
As mentioned, doors open to the physical exhibition on Saturday 9th November at 10am. From 12-2pm that day, we’ll be holding a drinks and nibbles reception and we're very pleased that both John Cornish and Ann Thornton (nee Cornish), Norman’s son and daughter, with their spouses Dorothy and Mike, will be in attendance. All are welcome to join, in fact it would be great to see a bustling gallery. Post-covid, the world now seems so much more relaxed about experiencing things through screens and not in the flesh, let’s make this one an exception.
Steve and Christine
p.s. a sixty page large spine-bound catalogue of the exhibition will be available for £16, initially only from the gallery in-person. It’s a very limited production of 150 copies, so we’d like to ensure as many visitors to the gallery during the show as able have the opportunity to acquire a copy.
