Paintings by David Parry
Explore artwork marking the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike, by former miner and artist David Parry on display in our Conference Area.
David Parry was born into a mining family near Barnsley four years after the nationalisation of the coal mines. Most males in his family had worked in the pits since the 1880s.
Although he had a university education – with a Degree in the History of Art – he then went down the pit and worked as coalface worker for fifteen years until his pit was closed in 1992. He was very active in the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike and was elected a NUM Branch official a few months after the strike.
He returned to regular painting after retirement in 2017. He also wrote a book which is a memoir dominated by the influence of coal mining on his life, which is on sale in the Museum Shop for the duration of the exhibition.
Image header © Women Against Pit Closures South Yorkshire 1984 by David Parry
(Painted 2023, Acrylic on canvas board (size – 60 x 80 cm)
