A RARE drawing of a Paris street scene by a North-East artist better known for his mining studies will go under the hammer this month.

The drawing, by Norman Cornish, of an elderly woman walking up Montmartre Street, was done for the artist's 1966 Tyne Tees Television programme, Cornish on Paris.

Born in Spennymoor, County Durham, in 1919, Cornish was apprenticed aged 14 at the Dean and Chapter Colliery, known as the Butcher's Shop.

He spent the next 33 years working in various pits in the North-East, experiences which would shape his paintings.

John Anderson, picture specialist at Anderson and Garland in Newcastle, which is selling the drawing, said Cornish's work is the most avidly collected of any North-East artist, with his work selling for thousands of pounds.

"It came as something of a shock when the picture was brought in for sale," he said.

"At first glance, it could have been of an old woman in, say, Durham City, but then, when we looked at the back, we spotted a label explaining that it was from his special visit to Paris for the television programme."

He added that the vast majority of Cornish's works sold by the firm are his studies of Spennymoor street and bar scenes, or of miners going to or returning from work.

These were done in the days when the coalfields of the North-East were among the most active in the country.

Cornish's preoccupation with mining and the mining community led to him being known as the Pitman Painter.

The drawing of a Paris street scene will go under the hammer on September 28, but is available to view from September 23 to 25. Cornish's work is also being exhibited at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens until November 28, which will coincide with his 85th birthday.

Published: 21/09/2004