James HESELDIN
Born in Leeds, the artist trained as an architectural draughtsman, specializing in terracotta. During WWI he worked as a draughtsman in a shipyard, as his eyesight was too poor for him to be enlisted. In the early 1920s he traveled to America and became a naturalised US Citizen.
When he returned to England on a painting holiday, Heseldin met Lily Paul, his future wife, in Newlyn. They were married in the village of Rocky Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey, where their daughter, Lamorna, was born in 1922.
After several years of little success in the USA, he brought the family back to Newlyn where he rented a studio and began to paint full-time. His metier was depticting Cornish street and harbour scenes in watercolour, and his compositions were often detailed studies, probably due to his architectural training. He exhibited at NAG.
In the 1950s he and Lily moved to St Austell to live with their daughter and son-in-law, and he became a member of the St Austell Art Society.
media
Depictor of detailed Cornish street and harbour scenes in paintings and drawings
works and access
Works include: The Arts Club Westcotts Quay - St Ives Cornwall (c1939); Street scene and Fowey Church; Bodinnick - Fowey; Cottages at Fowey; Beached Boats by the Quay, Fowey and many other similar watercolours around Fowey
exhibitions
Newlyn Art Gallery 1950s
Penlee House, Penzance A Village in Focus: Mousehole; A Village in Focus: Newlyn 29 November 2008 - 14 March 2009
memberships
NSA
St Austell Art Society
references
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall (col pl Penzance from Newlyn)