THE first work by pitman painter Tom McGuinness to be auctioned since his death last month will go under the hammer in a North-East saleroom.

Newcastle auction company Anderson and Garland expects a 1973 oil painting titled Night Shift to fetch up to £6,000 at the sale on Tuesday, March 21.

The painting, which shows miners leaving a moonlit colliery pithead, was one of the earliest shown in London after Mr McGuinness, from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, appointed his first agent, Labour peer Lord Desmond Hirshfield.

The night shift was a favourite theme of Mr McGuinness, who was painting until his sudden death aged 79.

He also featured the moon in many of his pictures, using it to cast a soft light over his subjects.

John Anderson, the company's picture specialist, said: "Until the late 1960s, Tom had shunned the idea of having an agent employed as he was still working in the pits.

"But when he did, it was one whose circumstances could not have been more different from his own.

"It was Labour peer Lord Desmond Hirshfield whose wife had seen Tom's work in 1968 when she visited the Durham Miners' Gala.

"She liked it so much she bought several examples, and Lord Hirshfield must have found himself equally impressed for, on March 1, 1970, they signed a three-year contract with an option to extend it for another three should both parties desire it."

Lord Hirshfield organised a one-man exhibition in Mayfair's Whibley Gallery, where the Night Shift was one of dozens of paintings sold.

Mr Anderson said: "It is as fine an example of one of his many moonlight scenes we have seen.

"Although Tom's contract with Lord Hirshfield ended in 1974, there is no doubt that his association with the peer went a long way to consolidating his reputation as an artist."

Bishop Auckland GP Dr Bob McManners, who has co-written a biography of Mr McGuinness, agrees with the valuation. He said: "Tom's work has been rising in price considerably anyway, but this is the first to be sold after his death and it could reach a good price.