Frank Bollard JOWETT

Frank Bollard JOWETT
1879
1943

This artist, from Kettering in the Midlands, was a regular visitor to Cornwall during the 1930s, spending much of his time in Polperro and Mevagissey. He managed to develop his art practice alongside his career as the managing director of a boot factory in Kettering - a failing business he had inherited from his father. After many years he became the managing director of the Carrington Shoe Company.

Jowett successfully exhibited an artwork at the Royal Academy in 1915. He was able to indulge his passion for art during his holidays, frequently spent in Cornwall. He was well known and respected amongst the Cornish artistic fraternity, with several of his paintings being acquired for Mevagissey Town Hall.

Over the years he had the odd painting hung at the Royal Academy, the Paris Salon, at RBA, RI and RWS, Liverpool and Birmingham. In 1932 he had a solo show at the Alfred East Gallery in Kettering and in 1935 was appointed Chairman of the Kettering and District Art Association. By 1937 he was Chairman of the Midlands Federation of Art Societies and by 1938, Vice-President of the Midlands Sketch Club.

From a Polperro perspective, he is best known for a series of etchings that he did of the village, which were reproduced as postcards by E T W Dennis & Sons.

A posthumous display of his work, which was planned before his death, was hung at Northampton Art Gallery in November 1943.  

media

Painting in oils and watercolour; etching

works and access

Polperro from the Hill; The House on the Props, Polperro (1930); A Sunlit Harbour

exhibitions

RA, Paris Salon, RBA, RI, RWS

references

Tovey, David (2021) Polperro - Cornwall's Forgotten Art Centre - Volume Two - Post-1920, Wilson Books