Museums & Talks
Norman Cornish: A Life in Sketchbooks - The Bowes Museum
Fri, 26 June 2026 – Sun, 3 January 2027 · Barnard Castle
About this event
About Step inside the working imagination of Norman Cornish in this intimate exhibition, bringing together finished drawings, paintings and watercolours alongside the preparatory sketches that shaped them. Across a lifetime, Cornish filled 269 sketchbooks, capturing the streets, people, and communities of the Durham coalfield with remarkable insight and warmth. His belief that sketchbooks should "have a life of their own… to teach people to look at things" comes alive in this display, which also features a major new acquisition made possible with the legacy funds of the Friends of the Bowes Museum, strengthening the museum's collection of one of the North's celebrated twentieth-century artists.
Get in touch
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