There are few "high art" paintings of British miners working at the coal face compared to the daily lives of fishermen, weavers or farm workers. In fact miners, even on the pit surface, are rarely represented. There are a number of interesting reasons for this artistic gap which will be briefly explored in this article.
This theme about the absence of art depicting mining communities has been explored through the play, 'The Pitmen Painters' by Lee Hall who also wrote 'Billy Elliot'. He tells the true story of a group of Northumberland miners who decided to take up painting as a way of recording their lives. The results were outstanding and give a rare insight into the lives of working miners from the men who were actually living their art.