THE work of an acclaimed Darlington artist who died tragically young is being exhibited in her home town for the first time in 60 years from Saturday.

In 1959, Jane Noone was on the brink of a promising career when she suffered an epileptic attack while having a bath and drowned. She was just 25 and in her last term at the Royal College of Art in London.

Jane Noone (1934-1959)

Her work had already been featured in a TV programme about promising northern artists by the acclaimed LS Lowry – he of the matchstalk men – and immediately after her death, there were two big exhibitions in Darlington, one of which came to national attention through a review in the Guardian newspaper.

“Her powerfully built, strongly coloured oils “bill-posted” throughout the town’s municipal art gallery in tiers

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