Harry Malkin is one of the UK's most important painters. His experiences as a miner inform his expertly composed depictions of life underground, where backs ache, lungs fill with dust and where teamwork and generations of hard-won skill can safeguard against constant danger. He learned to draw when his father came back from the pit and young Harry made marks on his soot stained back; he experienced political picketing and ultimate frustration with the strike of 1984; he finally found his way to the redemptive powers of art.
