Bessie was the eldest daughter of a large family whose father was the Purser and General Manager of the local tin mine at Boswedden, St Just in Cornwall. Her talents lay in painting the coastal scenes around her, and sculpting in wood and local rock. She was also an accomplished organist. In 1901 she was living with her sister Gertrude at South Huish, Devon.
One of her characteristic paintings, Summer Weather, Sennen Cove (1898) is in the collection at Penlee House.
A correspondent (2013) sent in this useful information:
'I came across a report in the Exeter & Plymouth Gazette (18 Aug 1899) of the annual exhibition of Devon and Cornish Artists at Eland's Art Gallery, High Street Exeter and it referred to Bessie Boyns as the pupil of Henry Edwin TOZER. I also noticed that in Kelly's Directory of Cornwall 1893 the entry for St Just in Penwith lists Bessie Boyns as organist to the Wesleyan Chapel and Henry Edward Tozer as artist at Cape-Cornwall House.'
Editor's note: Fellow participants in the 1899 Exeter exhibition referred to above included Boyns' tutor Henry Edwin Tozer. When Tozer's daughter Marianne married in 1896, Tozer's wife Louisa moved to London with the newly-wed couple. Louisa is described in the 1901 census as a widow, but it seems that she and Henry Edwin had separated in the late 1890s, and that he moved in to live with Bessie Boyns and her sister Gertrude at Galmpton, near Salcombe, Devon. Their last joint exhibition took place at Kingsbridge in 1912 and he died the following year. The two sisters, first Gertrude (1928) and then Bessie (1947) were buried beside him.
A correspondent (2020) has advised us of a Bessie Boyns painting which she found in a second-hand shop in her home town in Australia. The subject of this fine coastal view has been identified as being Cape Cornwall.
Stephen Bradbury was born in Manchester, England, the eldest of three sons to William and Doreen Bradbury. After attending Marple Hall Grammar School(1966–72) in Cheshire, where he studied art under the tutelage of Keith Stephens and the renowned potter and author, Harold Powell, he went on to do a foundation course in art at Bolton College of Art (1972–73), winning the Robert Fairthurst Prize, before doing degree work in Textile Design at Loughborough College of Art in 1974.
In 1973, Stephen Bradbury married Sue Goodricke; they have three children, Rachael, Hope and Jonathon and in 1988, the family came to Cornwall, where they still reside. In 1982 he was commissioned by art director, Gary Day Ellison at Pan Books to illustrate his first book cover The Many Coloured Land by Sci-Fi writer, Julian May.The distinctive artwork used on the series that followed helped catapult Bradbury's career in illustration, and in 1982, he was awarded the Pan Books, Artist of the Year award.
For the next twenty years, Bradbury illustrated over 300 book covers, for all the major publishers in the U.K. and around the globe. Authors included, Arthur C Clarke, Sheri S Tepper, Alan Dean Foster, Barbara Hambly, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Rosamunde Pilcher, Barbara Erskine. Joanna Trollope, and many more. Mainly commissioned for his illustration and design work, his work has also appeared in galleries in the U.K. Most of his work in illustration was painted in gouache.
In 1996, Paper Tiger Books published, Reflections - The Art of Stephen Bradbury. Written by David J. Howe, the book contained well over a 150 examples of his book cover illustrations and private artwork and gave an exclusive look into his working methods and motivations.
Around 2000, Bradbury decided to give up doing commissioned work and to become a painter instead, painting large canvases in oils. As part of this process, Bradbury took a degree in The History of Modern Art, at Falmouth College of Art, where he had previously lectured. After a degree in the History of Modern Art, he started on a major series of paintings, which was to become the Facets Project. In recent years, Bradbury, with the help of master craftsman and church window restorer, Tony Fletcher at Porthleven Stained Glass Studio in, Porthleven, Cornwall has been making stained glass panels based on his own paintings.
A coastal painting by this artist is included in the permanent collection of St Michael's Hospital (SMH), Hayle.
Braden studied at the Central School and moved on to the Royal College of Art in 1921, where she specialized in painting, but recognized the difficulties of making a career as artist and transferred - 'as we were so poor' - to the pottery department (under William Staite Murray).
She was so impressed by a London exhibition of pots by Bernard LEACH that she persuaded him to take her as a student, following a glowing letter of recommendation from Sir William Rothenstein, Rector of RCA ('I am sending you a genius'). She studied under Leach from 1925-28, who described her as "the most sensitive and critical of potters."
Braden struck up a strong friendship with Katherine PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE, and in 1928 joined her at Coleshill, Berkshire, staying there until 1936 when she returned to Sussex to look after her elderly mother. Her ideas were closely allied to Leach's, though her forms were less indebted to oriental shapes and more in tune with modernist ideas of minimalism and moderation. She lectured at Camberwell and Brighton Schools of Art (the latter until the late 1940s), and influenced a number of major potters, eg Henry Hammond, Paul Barron. Crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, which prevented her from using the kick wheels, she did not produce anything after the Second World War, eventually becoming an almost total recluse.
Alice Bradley studied Fine Art Sculpture at Manchester School of Art. She works from the Mag Studio within the Joel Gallery in Mousehole.
Born in Manchester, he studied at Manchester Regional College of Art, Manchester College of Fine Arts, and with Stanhope FORBES at Newlyn. He lived in Chinley, Derbyshire.
Born in Rhodesia, the daughter of a big game hunter, she was sent back to England after his death and put into the care of a great aunt, Lady Couchman in Gloucestershire. She attended Gardenhurst School, near Burnham on Sea in Somerset, and then the Simpson School of Painting in St Ives.
There she met the artist George BRADSHAW, and despite a seventeen-year age-gap she and George were married, living in the Ship Studio. Two children, Robert and Anne, were born of the marriage, Robert in St Ives and Anne in Sunderland during WWII. Her time for painting was seriously limited, but she made notes in her sketchbook and worked these up into paintings at home. After Bradshaw's death in 1960 she remarried (Bailey) and gave up painting shortly before her death.
An attributed work is Kynance Rocks, Cornwall, owned by the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, with this signature. Possibly indicated Samuel Bradshaw (fl 1869) who exhibited A Sketch near Cheltenham at Suffolk Street (Wood).
Born in Manchester, she studied at the Spenlove School of Art. Her earlier works were still-lifes but she became primarily a landscape painter in oils. She moved to Bickley in Kent, but was a regular visitor to Cornwall as many of her works show.
Constance Bradshaw was a regular exhibitor with the Society of Women Artists (SWA) from 1899 until her death. This included a period as SWA President.
Bradshaw was born in Ulster and served in Submarines as a Lt Commander during WWI and awarded a DSO. He settled in St Ives c1921, when he studied under Charles Walter SIMPSON, and met his wife Kathleen Marion SLATTER whom he married in 1922.
The artist worked pre-war from Carrack Dhu and Ship Studio, Norway Lane, St Ives, and was appointed by the Simpsons as an assistant in the Simpson School of Painting. After WWII he returned to St Ives and remained active and dedicated to the welfare of the Artists' Society - though times had changed art so radically that he was virtually a forgotten and obliterated artist; he became financially straitened as modernist artists began their days of glory.
He died, after an operation, at the Royal Cornwall Infirmary at Truro.
Janet Brady lives near Bude. She uses landscape to express emotions in paint.
Born on 6 May 1857 in Sibsey, nr Boston, Lincolnshire (GRO), he studied at the Lincoln School of Art and Antwerp Academy, and spent a year in Venice before arriving in Newlyn during the winter of 1884. He was considered to be a leading figure of the Newlyn School along with Stanhope FORBES and Walter LANGLEY. Though he was a founder of New English Art Club, he resigned in 1890 following a scathing attack on his work by Walter Richard SICKERT.
Before marriage (1891), his home and studio were at the corner of the Rue des Beaux Arts in Newlyn. In 1886 he produced Domino using the square brush technique. This painting was Bramley's only exhibit at the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1890, and regarded as the first substantial interior scene by a Newlyn artist. His work is know for its social realism, which Wood described as that 'of Courbet and Millet, combined with the plein air landscape of the Barbizon painters.'
From 1893-97 the Bramleys lived at Orchard Cottage (then Belle Vue Cottage), and then in 1889 at Belle Vue House. In 1895, he served on the provisional committee of artists supporting the Passmore Edwards Art Gallery at Newlyn, and in the Opening Exhibition exhibited three pieces, the sketch for his large painting Saved being purchased by Elizabeth FORBES.
The couple then moved to Droitwich that same year (1895) and on to Grasmere in 1900, spending the last years of their lives in London. His major painting A Hopeless Dawn was purchased for the nation by the Chantrey Bequest. He died on 10 August, 1915, age 58, at Chalford, near Stroud, Gloucestershire (GRO). Phryne comments that Bramley was 'Newlyn School's answer to Moore and Whistler'. His colour harmonies and adroit arrangements reflect the Cornish ambience strongly.
Bramley was born in Yorkshire, and worked first in a steelworks in Sheffield. His next work was with the Forestry Commission through which he gained an understanding of trees. In 1959 he moved to Nancledra in West Cornwall to take up life as an artist.
The son of an illustrator, Lez Bramwell was born in Birmingham. He first moved to Cornwall in the 1940s and was professionally active in Penzance in the 1970s and 80s. He was educated in Camborne, Harrow and Birmingham. Influenced by the Newlyn School, he painted in a traditional style, placing his subjects in settings reminiscent of the Victorian era. His wife, Audrey Iris (nee Audrey HARPER) was also a painter. The couple had one son. His work, which included seascapes and landscapes, was sold throughout the UK and abroad. Bramwell was also a highly successful art tutor and writer of short stories and poems.
His musical play about Van Gogh, 'V.artist', was recorded professionally and released in 2023 (Amazon, Apple etc) ready for staging later.
A memorial art exhibition of Bramwell's work is planned and will hopefully take place at Himley Hall, Dudley, in 2025.
Mentioned in Whybrow's 1921-1939 list of artists in and around St Ives; no further information currently available.
Sited in the art collection of the Helston Folk Museum are four oil paintings by an hitherto unknown (to us) artist of impressive ability. All four are marine paintings and all of schooners (as listed below) painted in oil on canvas. Another painting, also illustrated in the Public Catalogue Foundation review, is in the possession of the Newquay Old Cornwall Society.
2015: The following information on this painter has been submitted by a researcher into the history of Porthleven, Rodney Stephens, who obtained it from a list of Coastguards 1841-1901.
Alexander Kay Brander was born in Torpoint, Cornwall in 1816/17. He began painting during the 1860s, when he was a coastguard stationed at Tresco, on the Isles of Scilly. He married Amy Morice Town, from Plymouth, and they had five children. Brander is believed to have spent the first part of his retirement in Falmouth. From there he moved to Budock nearby. His wife pre-deceased him, and he died in Falmouth in 1906.
Bill Brandson started painting in Vancouver in the mid fifties before moving to San Francisco to study art, opera and ceramics. He then moved to Montreal to train as a teacher, gaining a BA in English and Political Science from Sir George Williams University. Further studies gained him a teaching qualification.
In 2003 he moved to Cornwall and returned to painting, specialising in landscapes.
His work has been shown at Falmouth Art Gallery, and he has twice won a place in 'Discerning Eye' at the Mall Gallery, London.
Born in Bruges of British parents seeking a more economically viable way of life on the Continent, Frank spent the first ten years of his life in Belgium, and when still a boy came across Cornish artist Charles Napier HEMY painting by the Thames at Putney, spent hours watching him, and began to sketch himself. His early informal training came from his Welsh architect father, and his only formal training was as draughtsman to William Morris.
Offered a painting trip to Mevagissy, Cornwall in 1887, he stayed for several months, and though he never settled in the county he visited regularly. On one of his visits (1887) he was to paint his first important work called Barkstrippers, an oil painting of workmen on a Cornish hillside stripping trees. This was the only one of three which he submitted to the RA summer exhibition of 1888 that was accepted and was noticed in the reviews.
Curiously, though he had not been near Newlyn, his work was discussed in this context: 'that Brangwyn's painting was a typical product of the school: it was rather dull and quite uninspiring, but it was competently executed.' Brangwyn developed a close friendship with Alfred EAST with whom he had travelled in Spain prior to 1896, and with whom he and his wife Lucy were visiting in St Ives in 1904, when his election to the RA was announced.
In 1930 he had completed 16 panels (7 years work) originally intended for the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords and considered to be his greatest achievement in their 'beauty and splendour'. Intended to form part of the War Memorial to the Peers and their kin who died in WWI, ultimately they were rejected, not as a memorial, but as a decoration for the Royal Gallery. Nonetheless, this magnificent work was not only rescued but treasured by Swansea Council, who recognised that though Brangwyn had been born in Belgium he was from a Welsh family. A beautifully detailed book by Frank Rutter, with a foreword by the Earl of Iveagh, in our WCAA Library Collection tells the complete story of these works and presents them with coloured plates, alongside preview drawings and studies for the completed panels.
Frank Brangwyn was knighted in 1941.
In 2006 Liss Fine Art and the Fine Art Society catalogued for sale approx 200 of Brangwyn's remaining works, with the aim of returning him to the 'canon of art history'; their catalogue of critical essays and plates, entitled Frank Brangwyn, A Mission to Decorate Life succeeds well in that.
Said to be active in the Bude-Stratton area from 1891-1922.
Maddie launched her own business, Mook buttons, after graduating from Falmouth College of Art with a BA in Fine Arts (sculpture). With the help of The Prince's Trust she specialised in the manufacture of cast resin buttons (August 2000). This has now expanded in product range to include cufflinks and jewellery (2004).
Though she still engages in design work (maddie moo designs), she has moved over into sales and marketing management in line with her eco-values and interest in organics (skin care products). (2011)
Two albums of photographs in the Penlee House collection belonged to John Branwell, the elder son in the Branwell family who built the original house in Penzance that Penlee House Museum and Art Gallery occupies today. He created a darkroom within the house, and the two albums donated by the Branwell family to the museum show him to have been an extremely accomplished amateur photographer.
Importantly for the museum, he photographed the interior and exterior of the house in the mid 1880s, giving a flavour of the building as it was when it was his family home. In addition to taking family portraits, he set out to capture life in West Cornwall.
David Tovey writes (2012) 'Branwhite came from a Bristol family of artists and was an early visitor to St Ives. He studied under his father, Charles Branwhite ARWS and at South Kensington, and was to become a well-known landscape painter. While not as regular a Cornish visitor as some of the other Bristol artists, such as George WOLFE and Charles Parsons KNIGHT, he did exhibit occasional Cornish scenes at the Bristol Academy.'
Hilary Bravo is a St Ives-based painter and jeweller. Her work has been shown in galleries far and wide including the Guggenheim in New York. She incorporates a wide variety of media into her jewellery, including found objects and fragments of discarded clay pipes which she has unearthed on her travels.
Lucie was born in Truro. She studied at Falmouth and Wimbledon Schools of Art. She lived in St Ives, Cornwall, and painted seascapes in situ on the beach using a special white tent to reduce the glare of sunlight on her wet painting boards. Having painted predominantly in oils, in 2011 she began using acrylics for large scale works. This is something that allowed her to paint quite quickly reflecting her "all in one go" approach when painting out of doors.
Lucie's first solo exhibition was held at The New Craftsman in St Ives in 2011. She exhibited in many mixed shows and in the Affordable Art Exhibitions in London. She died in Camborne, Cornwall following a long illness.
Her parents, Heather and the late Barry Bray, were also artists.
Barrie Bray was born in Cornwall, therefore the sea was always present and unsurprisingly an integral influence on his own work. The view from his studio, positioned as it is on the edge of the sea overlooking Mount's Bay, is ever changing, full of moods and momentary insights as the light moves here and there.
In the local traditional way, he worked mainly en plein air, but he also took sketches back to his studio for completion and fitted them into a themed series. He was married to the artist Heather BRAY, and his late daughter Lucie BRAY was also an artist who painted in the open air.
Born in Wales, Ivan Bray moved to Australia as a teenager, where he went to art college and was awarded a number of prizes. After returning to the UK, he studied at Falmouth School of Art (1998 to 2000) and subsequently made Cornwall his home.
A sculptor who employs a variety of media including clay, papier mache, collage and screen printing.