This year, the Mining Art Gallery at The Auckland Project are marking the centenary of Tom McGuinness with a powerful retrospective, ‘Out of the Darkness’.

A true “quiet man” of the north-east, Tom McGuinness used his art not merely to document the mining industry, but to articulate the visceral, lived experience of the coal face. And it’s through his evocative paintings and sketches, that he invites us beneath the surface. His work captures more than just the mechanics of labour; it conveys the weight, the isolation, and the raw humanity found within the pits of County Durham. With a clarity of vision and an artist’s profound empathy, he translates the dark, demanding world of the hewer into something we can all comprehend, capturing the soul of the mines while bringing it into the light.

Tom McGuinness: Out of the Darkness, until December, Mining Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland, aucklandproject.org