JUST OFF Newcastle’s busy high street is St Mary’s Place, a quiet road connecting the city’s two universities, where Norman Cornish’s work has been exhibited for more than 50 years.

Now a new exhibition at Gallagher & Turner is set to bring Cornish’s work back to the street 57 years after the artist’s paintings were first exhibited at the Stone Gallery in 1959.

The gallery and picture framer, which relocated to St Mary’s Place in April this year, has a long-standing relationship with the artist and his family, framing and restoring examples of his work for exhibitions in Newcastle, London and throughout the North East, organised by the University Gallery at Northumbria University.

“Norman visited our workshop on many occasions, offering his opinion on framing styles and signing pictures,” said partner Clare Turner, “He was in his 70s when we first met him, but he was still working hard on new paintings and drawing constantly. Norman always had a story about every picture. We held our first exhibition of Norman’s work in our old premises on St Thomas Street last Christmas. A small selection of beautiful early pieces from his estate that hadn’t been exhibited anywhere before. When we opened our larger new gallery on St Mary’s Place, we were excited to show Norman’s work again, and bring it back to this street.”

Cornish exhibited work at the Stone Gallery, alongside LS Lowry and Sheila Fell, for over 20 years, during the period when he made the difficult transition from being a talented amateur to a professional artist. The Marshall family, who ran the gallery, encouraged Cornish to embrace life as a full-time painter, supporting him with the income from sales and important commissions.

One such commission for the Port of Tyne Authority lead to Cornish spending more time on Tyneside.

“The request was for a painting of their Roll-on Roll-off facility which had been recently built at North Shields,” wrote Cornish in his 1989 autobiography A Slice of Life. “I had never seen such a thing as a Roll-on Roll-off and so I made several trips down to North Shields. I found the area quite exciting and made many drawings.”

These drawings now form the basis of this new exhibition. “We worked with Norman’s family to find the drawings and watercolours Norman made in North Shields and on Newcastle’s Quayside,” said Andrew Etherington, who curated the exhibition. “These pictures show another side of Norman’s practice as an artist, and offer an insight into the way he approached commissions. He really got to know the areas he was trying to capture through his drawings.”

The exhibition will include watercolours of the Roll-On Roll-Offs at the Port of Tyne, detailed studies of Newcastle’s historic buildings and energetic portraits in local pubs, many of which will be available for sale.

Cornish on Tyneside runs through to February 4