The Developing Story of Moira Stephenson (Artist 1934 – 2022)
National Coal Mining Museum for England’s current temporary exhibition, From the Earth Comes Light, deals with the women from mining communities who expressed their feelings through art.
Some time ago I shared some of the story of Moira Stephenson, who featured in an article in the May 1957 edition of Coal Magazine. The article was part of the exhibit but, at that time, the museum didn’t even have one of Moira’s paintings to put on show.
Despite lots of searching, I struggled to find out very much about Moira at all, nothing, in fact, other than what was in that magazine. Shortly after I had finished the piece though, things were to change quite dramatically.
In June of 2025, one of the museum’s curators, Alison Cooper, received a telephone call from Pat Dark who was wondering if she and her husband might donate some of the paintings in their collection to the museum. They were painted, she said, by one of the National Coal Board’s official artists. They were painted by Moira Stephenson! Not only did Pat and Rob Dark own some of Moira’s paintings, they knew her, they were her neighbours and her friends.
They were invited to visit the museum, on Wednesday 30th July and the visit was a remarkable one. Not only did they donate their paintings by Moira to the museum, they were able to share with us their story of Moira and what an important and interesting figure she was. They had known her from their first meeting, at a Silver Jubilee street party in 1977, until her death, aged 87, in 2022. The person we were introduced to, through conversation with Pat and Rob, was a lively one; a person with a sense of fun; a person who enjoyed life. In addition to that, her paintings, now on show in the museum, show an artist with a real talent who deserves to be celebrated.
We also learned that Moira is the subject of ongoing research by Doctor Nick Lee who is writing an article about her as part of his work on overlooked working class artists and writers.
And if you would like to see the paintings they are on display in the museum until 28 September 2025.
Post by Volunteer Nicola
Image: Mr and Mrs Dark with one of the donated paintings to the Museum
