Pit painter's work on show at Woodhorn

Posted by The Journal on Jun 1, 09 11:56 AM in What's On

Work by painter Tom McGuinness Paintings by a North East pitman who became an internationally-renowned artist through his evocative images of the coal industry go on show this week at a former colliery-turned mining museum.

Tom McGuinness - who was born in Witton Park, County Durham and died in 2006 aged 79 - is viewed as one of the 20th Century's most influential British industrial painters.

His work chronicled both the heyday and the demise of the region's once-mighty mining industry, as well as the grim social consequences of pit closures on the coal communities he was brought up in.

Today an exhibition of Tom's work opens at the Woodhorn Museum and Archives Centre in Ashington, Northumberland, and runs until September 6.

After leaving school at 14 he had a number of short-term jobs before he was conscripted to the coal mines in 1944 as a Bevin Boy.

He worked in the County Durham pits for 39 years, painting what seemed to him an indestructible industry before moving on to record its dramatic rundown in the 1970s and 80s.

He exhibited widely, with more than 50 solo and 40 group exhibitions at home and abroad, and his work is represented in private and national collections worldwide. He painted until the day he died in 2006, leaving his paint box open and an unfinished canvas on his easel.

And Liz Ritson, Woodhorn's exhibition officer, said many visitors to the exhibition would find it an emotional experience.

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