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St
Ives is synonymous with art. Since the
end of the nineteenth century, there
has been a thriving art community in
St Ives. Artists have found the quality
of light and the mild climate in St
Ives to be extremely conducive for painting.
St Ives is now the location of a branch
of the nationally renowned Tate Gallery.
In
the first half of the nineteenth century,
few artists painted in St Ives. Turner,
as is well-known, did a quick pencil
sketch in 1811, and it was clearly Turner’s
depictions of the south-west, which
were engraved and marketed by the Cooke
brothers, that led the marine painter,
Edward Cooke, son of the engraver, George
Cooke, to make a tour of the south-west
himself in 1848. He stayed a week in
St Ives in mid-October that year - the
longest time that he spent in any one
place.
The
completion of the rail link to Penzance
in 1859 had a major impact on the number
of artists visiting Cornwall and the
newly elected Royal Academician, James
Clarke Hook, spent nearly three months
in St Ives in 1860, showing three St
Ives subjects at the Royal Academy in
1861. Other artists, such as George
Wolfe and Thomas and Edith Hume, visited
with some regularity during the 1860s
and 1870s, and the well-known marine
painter, John Brett, spent a month in
the town in September 1872.
An
engraving of a drawing by Edward Cooke
dated 11th October 1848 of Carrick Gladden
Cove - later re-named Carbis Bay
The
collapse of the mining industry in the
1870s led to St Ives needing to re-invent
itself as a health resort and the completion
of the branch line from St Erth in 1877
improved access. By the early 1880s,
the number of artists visiting increased
and, of course, James Whistler, and
his two pupils, Walter Sickert and Mortimer
Menpes, stayed during January 1884.
Painting
by James Hook of the back of Smeaton's
Pier
The
establishment of the colony in the winter
of 1885 resulted from the visits of
the French artist, Émile-Louis Vernier,
who alerted various artists in the Breton
art colony of Concarneau to the attractions
of St Ives. First to arrive and settle
in the town were Henry Harewood Robinson
and his Irish wife, Dorothy, and they
were joined in 1886 by a party of Americans,
led by Edward Simmons. Also in St Ives
in the summer of 1886 was Stanhope Forbes,
and his new Canadian fiancée, Elizabeth
Armstrong.
Thomas
Hart's St Ives from Porthminster Point
from the early 1870s
The
group of artists that painted together
in St Ives in 1886 enjoyed their time
so much that they returned in 1887,
with further friends from Brittany,
including Adrian Stokes, who had shared
a studio in Concarneau with Edward Simmons,
his Austrian wife, Marianne and her
Finnish friend, Helene Schjerfbeck.
Of
all the early foreign artist visitors
to St Ives, the one to achieve the greatest
international acclaim was the Swede,
Anders Zorn, who arrived in late October
1877. It was in St Ives that Zorn, with
the aid of Edward Simmons, first learnt
to paint in oils and his painting Fisherman,
St Ives was bought by the French Government
in 1888. The early reputation
of the colony was further enhanced when
St Ives works by Adrian Stokes, Edward
Simmons, Howard Russell Butler and Helene
Schjerfbeck won medals at the Paris
World Exposition in 1899 which, as it
marked the centenary of the French Revolution,
was the most prestigious exhibition
of the decade.
Adrian
Stokes
Marazion Marshes
In
1890, the artists formed the St Ives
Arts Club as a social society and the
distinctive half-timbered building on
Westcott’s Quay has been the Clubhouse
ever since.
The
majority of the early St Ives colonists
were figure painters and, when their
paintings were shown at the Royal Academy,
they were labelled ‘Newlyners’, as their
style was influenced by their training
in France in much the same way as the
artists of the Newlyn colony, which
had been established in 1882, a few
years before that in St Ives. Accordingly,
the contribution that St Ives artists,
such as William Titcomb, Wyly Grier,
Edward Simmons, Marianne Stokes and
Dorothy Robinson, made to the reputation
of the ‘Newlyn School’ has been overlooked.
A
key initial figure in the development
of St Ives prior to 1914 as a world-renowned
centre for both the practice and teaching
of landscape and marine painting was
the future Royal Academician, Adrian
Stokes (1854-1935), whose experiences
in a variety of European art colonies,
resulted in a concentration on the careful
study of tones and values, as advocated
by the Barbizon School landscape painters.
Stokes’ paintings drew down to St Ives
a number of budding landscape students
from the Herkomer Art School at Bushey,
including Arnesby Brown, Arthur Meade,
Algernon Talmage and Greville Morris.
Sir John Arnesby Brown, in his day,
was considered to be “the greatest English
landscape painter since Constable” and
worked in St Ives until 1910, whilst
Talmage, who was very involved with
the Schools of Painting in the town
until 1908, also became a Royal Academician.
Regular visitor, Sir Alfred East, was
also an important influence in the colony
until his death in 1913, whilst John
Noble Barlow and Fred Milner were other
key figures in the landscape section
of the colony.
Arthur Meade - St Ives from Porthminster St
Ives’ reputation as a centre for marine
painting was largely due to Julius Olsson,
who became known as Britain’s greatest
seascape painter, and he produced the
finest work of his career in St Ives,
particularly in the years 1900-1914.
Students of his, who became leading
marine painters, included Norman Wilkinson,
John Park, Borlase Smart and the Australians
Richard Hayley Lever, Arthur Burgess,
Charles Bryant and Sir William Ashton.
Other important marine painters
in the colony were Edmund Fuller, Moffat
Lindner and Louis Grier and the watercolourists
Charles Mottram and John Bromley.
Charles
Mottram
Nearing Home
In
the decade prior to 1914, numerous American
artists worked in the colony and the
St Ives artists achieved considerable
success in America, particularly at
the Carnegie International Exhibitions
at Pittsburgh. Key American artists
were Elmer Schofield, William Wendt,
George Gardner Symons, Frederick Waugh
and Paul Dougherty. St Ives was
also visited by numerous other foreign
artists, particularly from Canada, Australia
and New Zealand.
During
the horrors of the First World War,
art was a secondary consideration, but
the colony was joined by the acclaimed
New Zealander, Frances Hodgkins, the
distinguished Belgian refugees Emile
Fabry and Louis Reckelbus and the American
illustrator Frank Ver Beck. The
aftermath of the War proved a difficult
time, as the colony went through a period
of transition, dominated by Charles
Simpson and the School of Painting that
he ran with his wife, Ruth. In
1927, however, the artists felt that
the colony had become moribund and so
formed The St Ives Society of Artists.
This Society, led by Borlase Smart,
flourished during the 1930s and 1940s,
attracting many of the leading artists
of the period, who had at some juncture
in their careers painted in Cornwall,
and winning a considerable reputation
nationally due to the many touring shows
that were staged at Public Galleries
all over the country. In fact,
in 1947, the Society even staged a touring
exhibition in South Africa. Members
included the Royal Academicians Stanhope
Forbes, Julius Olsson, Arnesby Brown,
Adrian Stokes, Algernon Talmage, Terrick
Williams, Lamorna Birch, Frank Brangwyn,
Laura Knight, Dod and Ernest Procter,
Bernard Fleetwood-Walker, Sir Alfred
Munnings and Stanley Spencer. Other
artist members, whose works are in public
collections, include Sir Claude Francis
Barry, Arthur Burgess, Leonard Fuller,
Harold Harvey, Arthur Hayward, Moffat
Lindner, Arthur Meade, Fred Milner,
Bernard Ninnes, John Park, Charles Pears,
Leonard Richmond, Dorothea Sharp, Charles
Simpson and Borlase Smart. The Society
also had a strong ‘black and white’
section led by Sydney Lee RA with Alfred
Hartley, Job Nixon, W.Westley Manning
and Raymond Ray-Jones amongst others.
During
and after the Second World War, artists
with a more modern approach, such as
Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, Wilhelmina
Barns-Graham, Peter Lanyon, Sven Berlin
and Terry Frost, joined the Society,
but tensions between the moderns and
the traditionalists built up after Borlase
Smart’s death in 1947 and led to an
acrimonious split in 1949, when nineteen
members left to form the Penwith Society.
During the 1950s, representational
work fell out of fashion and the modern
artists in the colony, now known as
‘The St Ives School’, went on to secure
international reputations.
Information
from David Tovey’s. St Ives Art
Pre-1890, The Dawn Of The Colony, Pioneers
Of St Ives Art At Home And Abroad (1889-1914),
and Creating A Splash The St Ives Society
Of Artists The First 25 Years.
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