A-Z
Shearer ARMSTRONG
Born in Penge, London, she studied at the Slade School from 1912 to 1914, also in Karlsruhe, Germany. Her move to Cornwall in 1921 was to start working (briefly) with Stanhope FORBES. She was influenced by Algernon Mayow TALMAGE to paint in oil because he thought she was so bad at watercolours. She went on to develop an individual style of still life in the 1930s, and still later, under the influence of Ben NICHOLSON, this developed into an abstract style.
She married Henry Armstrong, a civil servant, and moved to Carbis Bay in 1921 whilst maintaining studio initially at 1 Piazza Studios, then at 9 Porthmeor Studios, St Ives. In their early days there, she and Henry acquired Rose Cottage, the former home of writers Edith and Havelock Ellis, which was to become their permanent residence.
At the March Show Day in St Ives (1924) she exhibited posters, book illustrations and a flower and fruit study. As Shearer Armstrong she exhibited regularly at the RA and also at the Royal Scottish Academy. Through her friendship with Mary PEARCE and her interest in the paintings of Bryan PEARCE she was to be the conduit for Pearce's first major show of work in 1959 (25 paintings) at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, where he shared a three-person show with Armstrong and the St Ives artist Guy WORSDELL.
From 1926 she also exhibited at Newlyn, and in later years she gave art classes to the residents at St Teresa's Cheshire Home, Marazion. At this later stage she returned to a more traditional style of floral painting, of which there is an example in the permanent collection of the HYPATIA TRUST.
Elizabeth Adela ARMSTRONG
See Elizabeth Adela FORBES
Hugh Wells ARMSTRONG
Mentioned in Whybrow's 1921-39 list of artists in and around St Ives.
John Rutherford ARMSTRONG
Born in Hastings, Sussex, John was the third son of a clergyman, and his early years were spent in West Dean, near Goodwood. He studied law at St John's College, Oxford and then St John's Wood School of Art in London before and after the 1914-18 war, enlisting in the Royal Field Artillery during the conflict. During WWII he was an Official War Artist.
In 1945, Armstrong moved to Oriental Cottage, Lamorna in Cornwall, which was a cottage belonging to his second wife, Veronica Sibthorpe. He remained engaged in painting surrealist murals for the London stage which he had been successful with, both for stage and film. Special friends were Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton.
In Cornwall he joined with John TUNNARD, Peter LANYON and others irritated by the division of art into categories of figurative and non-figurative by the Penwith Society, and began to show his work at NAG, becoming a re-invigorating force within the NSA which they all joined. Armstrong served on the organising Committee of the Newlyn Society of Artists until 1955 when he resigned from both the Society and the Committee, due to leaving Cornwall.
In the early 1950s when Armstrong had been commissioned to paint the ceiling mural for the Bristol Council House, he did this work on canvas in the lower front room of NAG (where administration offices are today) which he contracted to rent for a year (1954). The canvas was so large that it had to be wound around three giant rollers, from which it was unwound as needed and painted a section at a time. An assistant for the year was a young woman named Mary COLLETT, who has continued as a painter in her own right. Later the canvas was 'marouflayed' (stuck) to the Council House ceiling where it remains.
In 1955 he returned to London, divorcing from Sibthorpe, remarrying thereafter to this third wife, Annette. Armstrong was made an Associate of the RA in 1966. He also painted murals for the Royal Marsden Hospital. Precise but muted in colour, his symbolist qualities are keynotes of his style, and always his work was abstract, upon occasion surrealist.
In 1989, a painting by John Armstrong, from the Permanent Collection of NAG, Veronica as Harlequin, was chosen for the Cornwall County Council Exhibition, 'A Century of Art in Cornwall 1889-1989' in which 140 paintings executed in Cornwall over the 100 year period were shown. The painting had been given to NAG by Frankie FREETH, another artist who had served with Armstrong on the NAG committee, and a close friend and partner to his ex-wife Veronica.
Hermina ARNDT
Hermina Arndt (known as Mina) was born on 18 April 1885 at Thurlby Domain, the family property near Arrowtown, New Zealand. Early in 1907, following the example of artists such as Edith COLLIER, she left for London with her mother and her two sisters. There she attended art school where her teachers included Frank BRANGWYN. She may have attended classes at the Slade. With German printmaker, Hermann Struck, she studied etching in Berlin, first in 1907, as Arndt had family ties there and spoke German, while many of her compatriots were studying in Paris. In late 1907 or early 1908 she joined the FORBES SCHOOL in Newlyn, Cornwall. Here, she met the Samuel John Lamorna BIRCH family, Harold KNIGHT, Laura KNIGHT and others in the NAG circle. She shared the Newlyn School's interest in depicting peasants, and her portraits of Cornish peasant women from that time echo the Cornish work of Edith Marion Collier.
Arndt exhibited two works at NAG in Newlyn (March 1914) just before the Gallery closed for the duration of WWI [no record]. She was back in Germany by August that year and when WWI was declared she and her sister Edith were briefly interned, then released as part of an exchange of women prisoners. After returning to New Zealand in 1914 Arndt lived in Wellington, renting a studio. In 1915 she exhibited 93 of her European drawings, oils and etchings to mixed reviews. She married Lionel Manoy, a widower, in a Jewish ceremony in Wellington (1917). They had one son, John.
In 1924 she was awarded a medal at the British Empire Exhibition, Wembley. Following her death, Arndt was largely ignored until the 1960s when her place in New Zealand art gained further recognition. In 1960 her son and stepdaughter initiated a retrospective exhibition at the Bishop Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, and in 1961 the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts held a retrospective exhibition in Wellington. Since then an interest in women artists and the development of modernism in New Zealand art have contributed to an increased awareness and appreciation of her art. Her work is represented in private collections and galleries in New Zealand, and in galleries in England, Australia and France.
John and Mia ARNESBY-BROWN
See John Alfred Arnesby BROWN and Mia Arnesby BROWN
Harold W B ARNOLD
Born in Penzance, Cornwall, the artist appears on a List of Illinois Artists. He died in Buffalo, New York. No other details currently available.
William Edward ARNOLD-FORSTER
see William Edward Arnold FORSTER
ART UNION of Cornwall
Established at Falmouth in 1852 ‘in connection with the Polytechnic’ (RCPS).
Its aim was to promote the sales of both pictures and photographs. In relation to the Annual Arts Exhibition sponsored by the RCPS, the Art Union was responsible for the presentation of the Medals and Prizes to the outstanding artists, draughtsmen and craft workers, the finance for which came from friends and subscribers.
Artists from Newlyn (and throughout Cornwall) exhibited and entered their paintings and sculpture in the annual shows of work in Falmouth. Periodically, the Art Union sponsored its annual exhibitions around the county. One example was in September of 1887, when the exhibition was held in Penzance at the Art School and Museum. Some artists, such as Stanhope FORBES and others also acted as judges and sometime invited speakers to events sponsored by the Art Union.
Alan ARTHURS
A regular exhibitor at the Lander Gallery, Truro (2011) whose work may be seen on the Lander Gallery website.
Alan is based near Charlestown, St. Austell and is particularly interested in the industrial heritage of the area. Alan studied Fine Art at Loughborough University. He paints using the unusual technique of enamel paint onto perspex.
He has a permanent exhibition of work at Atishoo Gallery in Charlestown where he has shown for the last nine years, and who have more than fifty pieces of his latest work on display.
