Cornish - Norman Cornish (Born in 1919)
Norman Cornish, born in 1919, began his working life at the Dean and Chapter Colliery at the age of fourteen. At sixteen, he joined the Spennymoor Sketching Club, which he thought was wonderful, and with his tutor Bill Farrells advice, that he could do no better than paint the life he knew, he embarked on the subject that would preoccupy him for the next seven decades, his Narrow World as the novelist Sid Chaplin (and fellow miner) wrote in an article in 1960. By the age of 47, after 33 years working in the County Durham coalfields he took the great risk of living by his painting. That it was a successful move is irrefutable. He has been the subject of countless TV documentaries, has his work in many public and private collections, has received and carried out several notable commissions including the mural for the Durham Miners Gala, has published his autobiography A Slice of Life and continues to paint and exhibit regularly.
