Henry Scott TUKE
Born on 12 June 1858, York (GRO). Soon after his birth, due to ill health, the family made a move to Falmouth. After attending a Quaker school at Weston Super Mare, where his friendship with Arthur TANNER began, Tuke studied at the Slade with Edward J POYNTER (1875).
Meantime, in 1867 at the age of 9, he began to show art work at the RCPS at Falmouth, and continued to do so until 1904 (in 1899 he became its Vice-President). Tuke was awarded a three-year Slade scholarship by Alphonse Legros (1877), and his life-long friendship with Thomas Cooper GOTCH developed from there. He worked in Florence (1880) and in Paris 1881-3, under J P Laurens, where Gotch also joined him.
On his return to England, he settled back in Cornwall: first at Newlyn, already a centre for French-style plein-air painting where he also made a great friend of William Ayerst INGRAM, and later in Falmouth, where he purchased a boat and his sea-studio came into being. In that same year (1886) he was one of the artists helping to found the New English Art Club. Most of his work reflected his love of sailing ships, knowledge of the sea and sunlight. He also painted male nudes, usually boys posed on sunlit beaches.
His painting All Hands to the Pumps! was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest (1889), as was August Blue (1894). Ingram, Gotch and Tuke together formed the 'Society of Country Painters' in 1907. In 1910 at NAG he sold Bathing. The highly regarded Henry Scott Tuke, always a stalwart of the artists' communities, died on 13 March 1929, age 70, at Falmouth. The longtime interest and devotion of Brian D Price and John F Tonkin, RCPS, Falmouth, in curating, transcribing diaries, and collating the Tuke Collection is acknowledged with admiration and thanks.
