Goodnight Mr Tom

HE was born in 1926 - the year of the General Strike - into a once thriving community which had fallen into rapid decline. Tom McGuinness lived with his grandparents Peter, a coal miner, and Elizabeth in a two-up two-down in Witton Park, County Durham, attending St Chad's Roman Catholic Elementary School.

From an early age, the young Tom was inspired by his surroundings, creating drawings of the broken railway tracks in between sketchings of famous film stars which he signed TMG and gave away to his friends.

It was through his childhood that he inherited a deep sense of justice and strong social tradition. He had a series of jobs when he left school but was conscripted into Fishburn Colliery as a Bevin Boy in 1944.

"I really didn't mind," he admitted later. "I came out for a while and had jobs in factories but I wasn't impressed with the work so I went back down again."

He could have got into trouble sketching his mining images on the side of the tub in chalk, but instead his overseer at the mine encouraged him to take art classes. He ended up attending Darlington School of Art and classes at the Spennymoor Settlement, where miners had the chance to broaden their horizons, and where Tom branched out into oil work.

Throughout the 1950s, he was living with his sister and pursuing his hobby. His first exhibition was at the offices of the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation in London in 1958.

His images became instantly recognisable with their stooped heads and bowed legs like bent pit props. Often bathed in ethereal light, his work reflected the arduous lives of the pit men along with the danger and camaraderie at the coal face, in the cage and returning from their shifts. Although the scenes contained humour, he was far from laughing at his colleagues.

"It's not just what you can see, I hope it's what you can feel as well, he said once.

Gillian Wales, co-author of Tom McGuinness: The Art of an Underground Miner, recalls first seeing Tom in the early 1970s at the library where she worked in Woodhouse Close, Bishop Auckland.

'He was just an unassuming, ordinary little working class chap like most other people who used the library, but I did notice the kind of books people borrowed and he was taking out books on artists and screen printing," she says.

"One day he came in with this little rolled up poster and said could I put it on the notice board and there it was, an exhibition in London by artist Tom McGuinness, it was amazing".

Gillian went on to become friends with the artist.

"He was quiet and introspective, certainly not an extrovert, but I think he was also a very thoughtful person in terms of the way he dealt with people," she says. "One of the things I can always remembering him saying was 'that's very interesting' and he genuinely meant it. He had a range of interests.

"I can remember when he was sitting next to me on the coach to Paris with a flat cap on, reading the paper with a Walkman stuck in his ear, but he was reading The Times and listening to Mahler."

Tom was always keen to experiment with different styles and working methods. From his early days in oil he progressed to using a thin glaze to give his work an ethereal sheen. In the 1970s he learned about etchings and print making, all the time drawing on his vast knowledge of artists around the world.

"His house was full of books on art and he could quote just about any artist, Rembrandt to Goya," recalls Dr Robert McManners, Tom's GP in Bishop Auckland and co-author of Gillian Wales's book. "When he moved on to 'wash-offs' he would use bold colours with some parts in Indian ink and then go into the shower to literally wash off the paint. You were left with a ghost-like colour which gave a very powerful image."

The other major print making technique he adopted was lithography, which was said to have been suited to Tom's spontaneity and dramatic subject matters. Along with Spennymoor artist Norman Cornish, he became the foremost chronicler of the North-East's passing heritage.

Never believing he could make a living out of painting, he stayed underground until, at the age of 57, he took redundancy from East Hetton Colliery after 40 years of pit life. It also ensured that he captured the very essence of pit life, and its changes.

"I am no different to the next man," he once wrote. "Each day at the pit brings a fresh challenge with new inspiration, so it is essential that I stay in Durham and work in the pit and paint the pit."

His wife Cathy was a source of constant support and inspiration to him and he left the pit in 1983 shortly after she died.

"He always said his wife was extremely important in his life and I think she gave him the confidence that he was good," says Dr McManners. "All his family were extremely proud of him".

There was also a religious aspect to much of his work - Miner and Sick Child brought comparisons with Madonna and Child. He was incredibly proud to take the commission for the stained glass windows at St Mary's Church in Woodhouse Lane, Bishop Auckland, the McGuinness couple's local church. There, he introduced contemporary images into biblical scenes.

"He used a technique which Renaissance artists use, setting a religious scene in a topical landscape," says Dr McManners. "At St Joseph's School in Coundon where his grandchildren go he had Joseph as a little miner, Mary as a miner's wife with baby Jesus. There was a copy of The Northern Echo on the floor and a bottle of brown ale in Joseph's pocket and the donkey was a pit pony. He had a very subtle sense of humour which would come through in his work."

But even though Tom was continually experimenting with his methods and subjects, the miners were never far from his thoughts. In 1996 he began two large oil paintings depicting riot police during the controversy surrounding the exportation of veal calves. According to Ms Wales' and Dr McManners' book, while working on the paintings the police helmets transformed into miners' hard hats, the lorries became pit heads and the dockside became a North-East colliery. His later works were called The Lost Generation, and depicted the aftermath of the pit closures.

After his retirement he continued to work every day. His house was always spotless, entirely at odds with the stereotypical view of an artist. After Cathy died, he would paint at the kitchen table and on an easel in the same room. He also spent time passing on his skills to others, such as his grandchildren and school children.

He died yesterday morning aged 79. His death came just two months before a major retrospective of his work at Bishop Auckland Town Hall in honour of his 80th birthday in April. It will still go ahead along with the publication of a new book by Dr McManners and Ms Wales entitled simply McGuinness.

His mining work, meanwhile, will continue to touch the lives of ordinary people. The pits may have closed, but the mining spirit lives on his work.

"He's left a tremendous collection," says Dr McManners. "He's recorded in pictures what you could never get across in words. There's a dignity to them and a great camaraderie."

Ms Wales agrees: "We really believe in the future he will be seen as one of the foremost expressionist painters. It is so sad he has gone."

Just before his death he was believed to have been painting. His son Shaun arrived at his house in Bishop Auckland to find his paint box open, and a painting he had just begun propped against his easel.

The unassuming working class chap found it difficult to put his feelings into words. But through his paintings he will speak to generations for years to come.