John Peace

A Lemington-born landscape painter and art lecturer (1933–2017) who repeatedly painted the pit country of his Tyneside childhood — six known paintings of the Montagu pit yard at Scotswood after its demolition, the Percy Pit heap of Walbottle Colliery in winter, the Lemington pit village and colliery engines — work his family is still tracing, with hundreds of paintings missing.

The mining history in this record

John Peace was born at Lemington, on the Tyne west of Newcastle, in 1933. He studied at South Shields School of Art, Leeds College of Art and the Slade, did national service with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, mainly in Cyprus, then taught art at the John Marley School, Westerhope, and later at Sunderland Polytechnic, retiring as senior lecturer in painting. He exhibited from his twenties, at the Royal Academy and the Stone Gallery, Newcastle, which shared shows between him and Frank Avray Wilson (1959) and John Minton (1961) and gave him his first one-man exhibition in 1962; Norman Cornish's official website notes that the two men exhibited together there in the 1960s and 1970s and taught at Sunderland at the same time.

Landscape and the coast were his main subjects, but the collieries around Lemington recur. His oil Montagu Pit Yard After Demolition (1961) shows the yard of the Scotswood pit where 38 men and boys died in the 1925 inrush; his family's records show five more paintings of the same subject, all now missing. He painted the spoil heap of Percy Pit, one of the pits of Walbottle Colliery, closed in 1935 two years after he was born, many times and especially under snow; his works also include Untitled – Lemington Pit Village and Colliery Engines in the Snow.

People

John Peace (1933–2017), painter and lecturer; his wife RoseMary, often his subject. Norman Cornish, a Stone Gallery contemporary and fellow Sunderland teacher.

Legacy today

Peace died in 2017, and his family set out to rebuild his catalogue: by around 2021 they had found 150 paintings and were still looking for 432, and their website now lists over 450 as missing, the five Montagu paintings among them. His family and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums planned an exhibition, Tyne and Tide, John Peace – Selected North East Paintings, at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery for November 2021 to May 2022. His watercolour Reclamation Percy Pit hung in The Last Cage Down, the 2024 Mining Art Gallery exhibition for the 40th anniversary of the miners' strike, and Colliery Engines in the Snow, lent by Durham County Council, was shown at the same gallery in its exhibition on coal and the railways.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Peace (1933–2017) was born at Lemington, studied at South Shields, Leeds and the Slade, and retired as senior lecturer in painting at Sunderland Polytechnic. (documented fact) ^1,2
• His oil Montagu Pit Yard After Demolition was painted in 1961; records show five other paintings of the same subject, all missing. (documented fact) ³
• He painted the Percy Pit heap, from one of the pits of Walbottle Colliery closed in 1935, many times, often in snow. (documented fact) ^4,5
• He exhibited at the Stone Gallery, Newcastle, from 1959, with a first one-man show there in 1962, and exhibited there alongside Norman Cornish in the 1960s and 1970s. (documented fact) ^1,2
• About 2021 his family had located 150 paintings and were seeking 432 more; in 2025 their site listed over 450 as missing. (documented fact) ^3,2
• Reclamation Percy Pit was shown in The Last Cage Down at the Mining Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland, marking the 40th anniversary of the miners' strike. (documented fact) ⁴

Mines

• Montagu Colliery — Tyne and Wear
  Peace painted the Montagu pit yard after its demolition in 1961 and at least five more times; the 1961 oil is in a private collection, the others are missing.

Regions

Tyne and Wear

Related Culture records

• Norman Cornish
  Stone Gallery contemporaries who taught at Sunderland at the same time.

Sources

1. (secondary) John Peace (biography, text from Marshall Hall, The Artists of Northumbria) — John Peace Paintings
2. (secondary) John Peace: An update and exhibition plans — Norman Cornish Ltd (official website)
3. (secondary) The Montagu Pit Disaster (17 March 2025) — John Peace Paintings
4. (secondary) John Peace Paintings: news — John Peace Paintings
5. (secondary) Works — John Peace Paintings — John Peace Paintings

Record created: 17 September 2026 · Last researched: 17 September 2026