St Ives Art Books

ST IVES ART PRE-1890 THE DAWN OF THE COLONY  by DAVID TOVEY

ISBN : 9780953836352 - Paperback only

120 pages (A4 - 297mm x 210mm) 
101 illustrations (73 in colour)

Price £12-95

Postage : UK free, Europe £4.00,
Worldwide £4-00 (surface), £8-00 (airmail)

Privately published, this book is  best obtained direct from the author, David Tovey, at

11-13 Mill Bank,
Tewkesbury,
Gloucestershire,
England GL20 5SD

E-mail : - dwt4@talktalk.net
Telephone : ++ 44 (0)1684 850898
Website:- www.stivesart.info

Written to accompany the 2008 exhibition, Dawn of a Colony : Picturing the West (St Ives 1811-1888) at Tate St Ives, of which the author was Assistant Curator, this book analyses, for the first time, the artists who worked in St Ives in the period prior to the formation of the art colony in 1885 and demonstrates that, as distinguished artists, such as Edward Cooke RA (1848), James Clarke Hook RA (1860), John Brett ARA (1872) and others, including the American Pre-Raphaelite marine painter, William Trost Richards (1878-80), had produced important paintings of the town previously, the visit of James Whistler in 1884 has been accorded too much significance, in a St Ives context, in the past.  

Instead, the author investigates the claim by the early American colonist, Howard Butler, that the French artist, Émile-Louis Vernier, was “the person who really discovered St Ives”, and demonstrates that Vernier drew the town’s attractions to the attention of a group of artists of various nationalities, who had been working together in the Breton art colonies of Concarneau and Pont-Aven.  The St Ives colony, therefore, was effectively established from Brittany, with foreign artists outnumbering English ones in the early years, leading to a focus on the exhibitions at the Paris Salon, rather than the Royal Academy.  

Artists involved in the early years of the colony include the Americans Edward and Vesta Simmons, Frank Chadwick, Howard Butler, Charles Reinhart and Rosalie Gill, the Finns Helene Schjerfbeck and Maria Wiik, the Swedes Anders Zorn and Emma Lowstadt, the Norwegian Bernt Gronvold and the German Franz Muller-Gossen, as well as Adrian Stokes and his Austrian wife, Marianne Preindlsberger, Stanhope Forbes and his Canadian fiancée, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Henry Harewood Robinson and his Irish wife, Dorothy Webb.  

With Anders Zorn’s Fisherman, St Ives being bought by the French Government in 1888 and with a number of other artists winning awards in Paris for their St Ives paintings in the years 1887-1890, the colony made an instant impact in Paris, leading to further groups of artists coming to visit, and so, from the outset, the colony was an international community with a cosmopolitan outlook.  In addition, Adrian Stokes secured the colony’s first major success at the Royal Academy in 1888, when his Barbizon-influenced landscape, Upland and Sky, was bought by the Chantrey Trustees.  

The author also highlights the early fraternisation between the colonies at St Ives and Newlyn and looks at the initial impact of the artists’ arrival on the town.

The result of extensive new research, this book is not only the first account of the pre-colony period, but also re-writes the history of the establishment of the St Ives colony.

PIONEERS OF ST IVES ART AT HOME AND ABROAD (1889-1914) by DAVID TOVEY

ISBN : 9780953836369 - Paperback only

350 pages (320mm x 230mm)
340 illustrations (236 in colour)

Price £35-00

Postage : UK free, Europe £10, Worldwide  £10 (surface), £20 (airmail)

Privately published, this book is  best obtained direct from the author, David Tovey, at

11-13 Mill Bank,
Tewkesbury,
Gloucestershire,
England GL20 5SD

E-mail : - dwt4@talktalk.net
Telephone : ++ 44 (0)1684 850898
Website:- www.stivesart.info

Written to accompany the 2008 exhibition, Dawn of a Colony : Lyrical Light (St Ives 1889-1914) at Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, of which the author was Curator, this significant, and extensively illustrated, book discusses the major paintings by the most important artists working in the St Ives art colony during its pre-War heyday, many of which won awards at international exhibitions, particularly those in Paris and Pittsburgh.

This was a period when the St Ives colony won a world-wide reputation as a centre for both the practice and teaching of landscape and marine painting, with artists from many different countries coming to study and work en plein air alongside British artists, who had secured considerable reputations in these genre both nationally and internationally.  Labelled by the author, ‘St Ives Tonalism’, the prevalent style was based on a careful study of tones and values, inspired initially by the Barbizon School, coupled with an emphasis on the effect, rather than the topographical subject, and a desire to evoke a mood or inspire poetical associations.  Previously unresearched, the author reveals a significant movement in British landscape and marine painting, featuring the future Royal Academicians Adrian Stokes, Arnesby Brown, Julius Olsson, Alfred East and Algernon Talmage.  Other important members of the landscape section included Arthur Meade, John Noble Barlow, Fred Milner, Charles Eastlake and Greville Morris, whilst significant marine painters included Moffat Lindner, Edmund Fuller, Louis Grier and the watercolourists, John Bromley and Charles Mottram.

There were also a number of fine figure painters in the colony, such as William Titcomb, William Fortescue, William Eadie and Thomas Millie Dow, whilst important female artists included Marianne Stokes, Dorothy Webb Robinson, Mia Brown and Jessie Titcomb.  Often labelled ‘Newlyners’ by contemporary critics, the author argues that the contribution of the St Ives artists to the reputation of the ‘Newlyn School’ has been overlooked.

The book also highlights the influence of the colony upon the numerous foreign artist visitors, and the way in which friendships forged led to St Ives artists gaining unprecedented exposure internationally, particularly in America.  Foreign artists featured extensively include the Americans Sydney Laurence, Elmer Schofield, Frederick Waugh, Paul Dougherty, Abbott Thayer, Gardner Symons and William Wendt, the Canadians Mary Bell Eastlake, Emily Carr and Harry Britton, the Australians Phillips Fox, David Davies, Hayley Lever, Arthur Burgess, Will Ashton and Charles Bryant, the Kiwi, Herbert Babbage, and the Dutchman Bosch Reitz.

This book, therefore, completely re-evaluates the significance of the St Ives art colony not only in a Cornish context, but also on the national and international stages.  It will surely become the principal reference work on this period.

Revised Edition - First Edition Sold Out

ISBN 0 9538363 47 - Paperback

344 pages (A-4)
90 colour and 243 black and white illustrations

Price £35-00

Privately published, this book is  best obtained direct from the author, David Tovey, at

11-13 Mill Bank,
Tewkesbury,
Gloucestershire,
England GL20 5SD

E-mail : - dwt4@talktalk.net
Telephone : ++ 44 (0)1684 850898
Website:-www.stivesart.info