Chris did not take up painting until the age of 60, but it has nevertheless brought on a new lease on life. Stating inspiration from Cornish artists Kurt JACKSON and Patrick CAULFIELD amongst others, Chris claims to be finding new stimuli each day and is continuing to exhibit widely.
American student-daughter (art and drama) of Hanna Rion Ver BECK from a previous marriage, and member of STIAC. Arriving in St Ives with her mother and stepfather, Frank Ver BECK, in the summer of 1913, she was a beautiful young girl who appealed strongly to the artists' groups as a potential model. Mabel Maud DOUGLAS painted a portrait of her [Plate 36, Tovey 2009] and her likeness is also presented as Fig 3.69 in that same work. She married Captain C Bernard Trewhella of St Ives (1918) and died in the aftermath of the birth of their second child at Woking. She is buried at Zennor Churchyard, Cornwall, as her brother-in-law, William Harold Rosewall Trewhella, was the Vicar there at the time of her death.
Nev Ackroyd was born in Nelson, Lancashire. After studying art at Harris College, Preston, he gained a teaching qualification from Manchester University. He taught art in secondary schools in London until 1989, when he moved to Cornwall. He continued teaching until 1997, when he began to paint fulltime.
His work has been exhibited throughout Cornwall, in Devon and London.
Birmingham-born painter of wildlife (birds), landscape and sporting scenes, especially Scottish views.
Originating from Northampton, he became a St Ives exhibitor in 1955, when he began to exhibit nationally and internationally, and taught sculpture at the Central School of Arts and Crafts until about 1960. He visited West Cornwall in the 1950s, moving around with the circle that included Denis MITCHELL, Patrick HERON, Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM, and Roger LEIGH. Davies notes that Adams 'considered a move to St Ives in 1968 but had been discouraged by the distance from London.' He had already spent a year in his student days working in St Ives, and later was to rent a St Ives cottage (1975-6) while teaching sculpture at Falmouth College of Art.
Known primarily as a very successful photographer of children and portraiture, but also a painter in later years. Born in Southampton, his father Walton Adams was a pioneering photographer in the 1860s (his clientele including Royalty). According to the 1891 census, the family were at that time living in Reading, where they remained until 1911. Adams studied at Reading Art College and in Paris before becoming apprenticed to his father in 1892. Marcus also photographed Royalty, including the then Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
His paintings were on wide variety of subjects, and he exhibited his paintings both in St Ives (STISA) and at the Reading Guild of Artists, amongst other venues in and around London. He was the father of the photographer, painter and teacher Gilbert ADAMS, who followed on in the distinguished line of family occupations. His home was in Oxfordshire/Berkshire. He died in North Stoke, near Henley.
Born in Worcester. After eight years as a ceramics decorator at the Royal Worcester Porcelain factory, he studied at the Académie Julian, Paris. The St Ives Times reported that he was visiting St Ives, and 'a few years ago he had a picture purchased by the Chantrey Bequest' (Aug 1913). That painting was Winter's Sleep (RA, 1900), now owned by the Tate. The painter was a short-term visitor to the locale.
His father was Marcus J ADAMS (1875-1959), also a photographer. He first visited St Ives in 1926 to see Leonard RICHMOND, returning regularly on holidays, and moved to St Ives with his family at beginning of WWII. He photographed many of the major artists in the area. Adams was particularly friendly with Peter LANYON, Denis MITCHELL and Hyman SEGAL. He directed the lighting for the Coronation of Elizabeth II, and was in great demand as lecturer on art, photography, and lighting for the remainder of his life.
At the National Portrait Gallery are lodged his portrait photographs of Peter LANYON and Terry FROST, amongst others.
Elinor was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the only child of the chemist Henry G Adams and Clara E Adams. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1891 she lived in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, but by 1901 was living with her family in Bedford, Bedfordshire. In The Year's Art (1917) she gives a sending-in address in Coulsdon, Surrey, and lists an exhibition at the Walker, Liverpool. In the first year's exhibition programme of the Newlyn Art Gallery when it re-opened after WWI, this artist exhibited an untitled painting (1921, summer exhibition). Latterly she lived at Sevenoaks, Kent. No definite connections with Cornwall otherwise known.
Primarily a St Ives artist, Beale Adams exhibited at the RCPS from 1897, and three paintings - Lelant Estuary, Hayle River and Morning - at the Whitechapel Exhibition in 1902. From 1898 he also exhibited at St Ives Show Days. He is recorded as living at Porthia from 1898, and Primrose Cottage, St Ives, until 1911 when he left the area to live in Ilfracombe Devon. Nevertheless, he returned upon occasion, exhibiting at Show Days from 1919-1924 and at the NAG-Revival exhibition (following WWI) in September of 1920. He displayed two of his ‘excellent sea paintings’, Last of the Light and Wild Weather, at the 1924 Show Day in St Ives, ‘works typical of this well known artist.’ [reviewer] By 1926 he was living again at St Ives at Lyonesse, Talland Road, where he remained until 1939 (Kelly’s).
Alfred Adams attended Northampton College of Art, Birmingham College of Art and Central London Art School. He worked as an artist in a large publishing house before joining an international advertising agency as art director. Since retiring to Cornwall he has been able to concentrate on his love of painting. His work has been exhibited at Tregony Gallery.
Jane Adams works from her studio in the garden behind the Over the Moon Gallery in St Just in Penwith, Cornwall. Her ceramic animals are inspired from her own household of animals now and in the past. She uses a crank stoneware clay and fires in an electric kiln to make pieces frost-proof, and usable out-of-doors. Her pieces are witty but also elegant, demonstrating the clear respect and love she has for their eccentricities and personalities.
Sarah began her artistic studies at Falmouth School of Art and subsequently Cheltenham, obtaining an MA in Fine Art Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 1987. She travelled widely in Europe, America, South Africa and India, where she was attached briefly to the University of Mysore. Having spent periods of time painting in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, she made her home in Padstow in 2005.
In 2006 Sarah founded The Padstow Studio, from where she exhibits her own work and that of fellow artists. A landscape painter who is particularly drawn to coastal subjects such as rock formations and sea caves, she makes small observational studies on site, which form the basis for large studio works in oil on linen.
In 2009 she was awarded the Meynell Fenton Prize in London, and 'Viewers Choice' at the RWA Autumn Exhibition in Bristol.
The artist has exhibited widely in group and solo shows in London, and her work has also been shown in Exeter and the Channel Islands.
Born in Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia, the son of wealthy barrister Travers V Adamson BA (1827-1897 b Dublin, Ireland, d Eastbourne, Sussex) and Janet Muirhead Stevenson (b Australia), his mother dying nine days after his birth.
The family, by this time his father, and including his step-mother Catherine Synott (1850-1929) and surviving siblings and half-siblings returned in 1888 on the RMS Victoria to England, to live in Kensington, London.
In 1894 Adamson married Ethel Farrant, youngest daughter of Mark Farrant, surgeon of Beaufort House, Exeter. A former law student who decided to turn to art, Travers Adamson lived at 1 Penare, Penzance in 1901 and was listed in the Year's Art. His artistic interests and skill are not yet known, and he died at the young age of 41 (GRO, March Qtr 1905).
Their son, Lt Travers Farrant Adamson (c1896-1916) died in the Battle of the Somme in WWI.
Adamson's exhibition record at Newlyn began as early as 1903, exhibiting Perran after Storm, and took up again with the first opening exhibition after WWI, in the summer of 1921 when she exhibited Moorland Sketch. In the first exhibition to include crafts at NAG (December 1924) she presented a group of Illuminations.
Serving on the NSA Committee, she also exhibited in 1926 and the spring of 1927 (unspecified hung artwork). In 1928 at the Summer Craft show, she like Mary OLDHAM exhibited bookplates and woodcuts, as well as paintings Landewednack and The Shaft on the Cliffs, before being listed as an Artist Subscriber to the Gallery from 1933-37.
In the minutes of the Annual Meeting of the NSA in the spring of 1936, Miss Adamson addressed the Management Committee with a request to provide greater wall space for craftworkers. However, this idea was discussed and unanimously rejected, despite the previous suggestion, at the same meeting, that the Crafts Committee (Ella Louise NAPER, Miss Churchill-Tayler [Assis. Curator] and Reginald Thomas DICK being that group) should endeavour to obtain new craftworkers to present new crafts for exhibition. 'This was not a concern for the painters.'
Teresa Adcock was born in Leicester and obtained a B Ed degree from Warwick University. She taught art for 30 years, then spent eight years in France before moving to St Ives in 2010.
Sue has been an instructor at the Penzance School of Art for some years, and exhibits regularly in mixed shows and galleries in the area.
In 2001 she had a solo show of her paintings at the Hypatia Showroom, an interim exhibition space on Market Jew Street, Penzance, which was highly successful.
Sarah Adie is a sculptor based in Lamorna whose carved forms are inspired by nature, dance and the shamanic.
A surrealist artist, born in Buenos Aires, Agar returned with her family to England to attend school at Canford Cliffs, Dorset and Heathfield, Ascot (taught art by Lucy Elizabeth KEMP-WELCH), Tudor Hall, Chislehurst and the Mlles Ozanne's Finishing School, London. She also attended weekly classes at Byam Shaw School of Art and visited the studio of Charles SIMS. She spent a summer at Cap d'Antibes, where she was taught watercolour by William THORNLEY. Both of these artists had worked in West Cornwall previously. From 1921-4 she attended the Slade part-time, where she was taught by Professor Henry TONKS, but in 1925 she destroyed most of her work.
In July of 1937, Agar and her partner Joseph BARD, whom she married in 1940, stayed at Lambe Creek, Cornwall with fellow artists Roland PENROSE, Lee MILLER, Paul ELUARD and Nusch ELUARD [See Penrose]. In 1945, at the end of the WWII, she again visited Cornwall. And in 1960 she made visits to Venice and Cornwall. Shortly before her death, she was elected RA.
Vicki Aimers was born in Essex and moved to Cornwall in the early 2000s to study at Cornwall College. In 2019 she obtained an MA in Authorial Illustration from Falmouth University.
She says: 'I am always inspired by my immediate surroundings. Domesticity is a constant element in my work. The theme of ‘home’ reoccurs in my pieces; as I question what it means to me and past generations. I enjoy combining a number of techniques such as printmaking with painting or stitch with drawing. Working with layers gives a sense of history to each piece. Often I photocopy my images, cut them up and re-collage them in various ways to make new pieces. By doing so, each image has some relation to the last; yet still moves forward.'
As artist-in-residence at Kresen Kurnow, Cornwall's new archive centre in Redruth, in 2022, Vicky embarked on an exploration of Catherine Payton Phillips, a Quaker minister and resident of Redruth (1727-1794). Kresen Kernow retain the original copy of Phillips' memoirs. As part of her MA studies, she has also undertaken research on female astronomers such as Caroline Herschel and Maria Mitchell.
Aimers' work as a book artist and workshop provider focuses on creative storytelling, intertwined with elements of social history. She collaborates with institutions and museums to bring items in their collections to life in creative ways, by taking part in public events, organising workshops and developing online activities on a variety of art and storytelling techniques. She also arranges workshops at Krowji and across the south west, enabling others to explore their stories and memories. She offers creative mentoring, experimenting with different art techniques focussing on individual narratives. The Palimpsest Project, which she founded, is an initiative, influenced by her study of the history of piecework, which helps record fragmented memories and stories of families through projects and kits.
Swedish-born (Sundeswall) painter and architect, who studied at Glasgow School of Art (1900), St John's Wood School of Art (1916), and the following year in Munich. He spent most of his artistic life in Britain with Chelsea studios though exhibiting widely. He finally settled in South Africa in 1960, aged 73, where he died the same year. Introduced at STIAC in 1923 (Nov).
Jane trained originally as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital, London, while also studying art and theatre set design at Morley College in Lambeth (near the Hospital). Her interests were always creative and artistic, and though she did not ever earn a living from her painting, after her retirement from West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, she spent all of her time in the studio, working with both oils and acrylics, and various forms of mixed media, including collage and tiling.
Especially successful at creating stylish mosaic tiled table tops, her work was often seen in mixed shows and small galleries and sales of work. An admitted amateur, Jane was an outgoing and enthusiastic spinster lady who made friends easily and treated them to great hospitality. An excellent cook, her parties were always peopled with hungry artists and others who were engaged in some form of creative cultural life. A committed Christian, she attended services regularly at Zennor Parish Church and is buried in Zennor Church Yard, beside the grave of the famed artist, Patrick HERON. Special friends of Jane's in life were Rose HILTON, Alix KALMA, and Lamorna KERR amongst many others.
A painter in oils who exhibits with Gallery Tresco, Isles of Scilly, as one of her exhibition venues. She comments, 'Since my last trip to the island, a range of blue and turquoise hues have taken over my palette, the patterns of light, seaweed and marine life in the shallow waters are a never ending source of inspiration for me.' Her work is ethereal, abstracted but also recognisable through its titles which are aptly chosen: Chorus of Light, The Grace of the Shallows, Skyward, etc.
In October 2022 Albright received the OUTSTANDING award at the 'E Sun' awards in Taiwan - a five-yearly international painting prize. Her 'Layers of Time', a work in oil on canvas, has been purchased for the prestigious E Sun Bank art collection in Taipei.
Aldridge was born in Teddington, Middlesex, and studied at Kingston School of Art (1933-38) and the Regent Street Polytechnic. Although primarily a watercolourist, she worked in a number of styles, and also wrote and illustrated children's books (despite severe arthritis). Exhibiting widely, she worked with her husband, the painter William WARE, on the restoration of paintings, frames and porcelain for which they were highly regarded. During the war years she lived in St Ives and became a member of STISA. She wrote a book on porcelain. Her son, Martin WARE, was also an artist.
The artist was associated with St Ives ( STIAC 1923, from India) and worked from Downalong Studio. She is probably the Mrs Alexander who exhibited Johannah (1923) and Mrs Cuneo (1924).
London-born Algar attended Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools before coming to St Ives in 1976 to live and paint. From 1994 to 1996 she had a spell working in the United States, exhibiting in San Diego, California and Dallas, Texas. On returning to Cornwall she settled in Marazion, where she now lives. Her work has been exhibited at the Rainyday Gallery, Penzance. Her interior scenes are noted for their muted hues and restrained subject matter.
Her Memorial service was held in Marazion in May 2013, and donations to celebrate her life were given to W.S.P.A. (Big Bear Rescue).