The colourful and emotion-charged Durham Miners Gala has inspired not only the huge crowds it attracts but also artists over the years.
Now a new exhibition at Bishop Auckland’s Mining Art Gallery celebrates the Gala as it returns on July 9 after being cancelled for the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Hosted by the Durham Miners Association since 1871, the Gala, which is attended by more than 200,000 people from across the region and beyond, will be dedicated to key workers.
Unity is Strength: Durham Miners’ Gala, brings together mining art from lenders across the North East with pieces from the Gallery’s Gemini Collection, including works by artists such as Tom McGuinness, Norman Cornish and David Venables. The Gemini Collection, featuring 420 works by mining artists, has a permanent home at The Mining Gallery, which opened in 2017 to preserve an artistic record of an industry and a memorial to a former way of life.
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The works also celebrate the achievements of coalfield heritage. The exhibition captures the community spirit, pride, solidarity and identity which has been celebrated through the biggest annual event in the labour and trade union movement calendar – also known as the Big Meeting – since its inaugural gathering was hosted in Wharton Park in 1871.
It includes the earliest known image of the Durham Miners’ Gala, Racecourse at Durham from around 1880 by an unknown artist. Other works in the exhibition include Big Meeting by Norman Cornish (1942); The Years of Victory (1947), by John Bird; and Durham Big Meeting (1968) by Tom McGuinness.
Anne Sutherland, assistant curator at The Auckland Project, which operates the Mining Art Gallery, said: “The Durham Miners’ Gala remains an important reminder of the proud mining communities of the North East and we are honoured that the Mining Art Gallery can play a part in marking its return.
“Mining artists used art as a means of expression and communication, as well as a social documentation and record of the day itself. The artworks which have been brought together in Unity is Strength document the course of the day, capturing the spirit of the Big Meeting and demonstrating its significance for the people of County Durham and the wider mining communities across the region.”
During its proud history, the Big Meeting has grown and evolved to include political speeches, a procession of banners through the streets of Durham, and the Miners’ Festival Service at Durham Cathedral.
Ross Forbes, director of the Durham Miners’ Association said: “The Durham Miners’ Gala is the largest event of its kind in the world. On the second Saturday in July tens of thousands of people take their banners and bands to the streets. They celebrate the strength of community and unity which has bound the people of County Durham since the Gala was first staged in 1871.
“It is very fitting that the Mining Art Gallery’s exhibition shows the depth and breadth of this unique culture in the year the Gala celebrates the role of key workers through the pandemic. The Gala may have been paused for two years but it will be back stronger than ever on July 9. It is an annual reminder of the resilience and dignity of working people who cherish their collective values in the most spectacular way.”
Unity is Strength: Durham Miners’ Gala is at the Mining Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland until the end of 2022. For more information, visit www.aucklandproject.org/venues/mining-art-gallery/.
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