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A Missing Link

In 1964, a very astute artist added to his collection of paintings by purchasing a version of The Gantry by Norman Cornish. The painting cost 30 Guineas (equivalent today of £2,000+) in an exhibition at The Stone Gallery in Newcastle, and the buyer was Laurence Stephen Lowry.

Lowry was an English artist and many of his paintings and drawings depict Pendlebury and the vicinity of Salford, Lancashire, where he lived and worked for 40 years. Lowry depicted scenes of life in industrial NW England and he was a lonely man depicting loneliness. He began his working career as a rent collector and he was perceived as an outsider in his community looking in on his subjects. Cornish painted life in the NE of England but he was immersed in his community where he recorded everyday life. At work – working underground as a miner during the day, and in the evenings and weekends, spending his leisure time in the pubs of Spennymoor with his marras (workmates). The beer in Cornish’s glass became the passport to be able to share, observe and record the life around him. Because he could blend in, this gave him the opportunity to produce so many character drawings in different settings.

Mr. Cornish and Mr Lowry (always formal) were well known to each other and they first exhibited together in Carlisle in 1951 at Tullie House: ‘The Northern Realists’, and thereafter on a number of occasions in London. They shared the same agent at The Stone Gallery in Newcastle and during the 60s continued to exhibit together along with other regional and leading British artists.

At various times, both artists had connections with Sunderland. Lowry was a regular visitor to the North East and he enjoyed painting coastal scenes when he stayed at the Seaburn Hotel near Sunderland. He was also a frequent visitor to Berwick upon Tweed where there is a Lowry Trail in his memory. Cornish was a part-time lecturer at Sunderland Art College from 1967 and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Sunderland University in 2012. Each artist has a picture hanging in the National Glass Centre at Sunderland: Lowry’s drawing of Monkwearmouth Church is there and on the opposite wall is Cornish’s Pit Road in Winter, currently on display at The Bowes Museum extended exhibition.

On 16th August 2020 , McTears Auctioneers Glasgow: The Scottish Contemporary Art Auction Lot 668

Gantry, A Mixed Media by Norman Stansfield Cornish MBE 1919-2014

Label verso Stone Gallery, Catalogue number 42

Purchaser inscribed on label 22nd February – 21st March 1964 LS Lowry Esq.