Louis GRIER
An Australian born in Melbourne, and brother of Edmund Wyly GRIER, Louis was educated in Canada before running a painting school in St Ives with Julius OLSSON.
He shared the Ivy Tower Studio, Porthmeor with his brother, and later worked and taught from The Foc'sle studio. When he separated from the Olsson school in order to start up classes on his own, Algernon Mayow TALMAGE took over as assistant to Olsson. His partner for the new venture, called The St Ives School of Art, was John Noble BARLOW, and tuition was offered in 'Landscape, Marine, Figure, and Still-Life, both in Oil and Water-Colour from Nature.'
Louis was known as a party-goer, fun-loving and social person, who sported striking clothing, including a black cape and high boots. His work was strongly influenced by Whistler and French Impressionism, and his freedom of style attracted both admiring students and some distaste amongst the more formal painters. In 1910 he donated one of his paintings to be auctioned for the Relief Fund set up in St Ives after the loss of the fishing boat Lily John. He was styled as one of Wormleighton's 'painters of light.' He was the author of 'A Painters Club (at St Ives, Cornwall)' in The Studio (V:110), and a signatory of the Glanville letter (Nov 1898).
media
Painter of landscapes and marine subjects; teacher
works and access
Works include: La Garde de Nuit and Pecheurs de la Cornouaille gardant leurs filets (1891); The glamour of evening; Diana's Pool (1913); Eventide (1914); By Canal and River (1917); The Sentinel (1920)
Local: Evening at St Ives Bay (at St Ives Library); Marshes, Winter (owned by St Ives Town Council)
exhibitions
Paris Salon 1891 (Medallist)
RA 1914, March - April 1920
Newlyn Studios March 1889
St Ives August 1889, Lanham's March 1909, March 1913, Novenber 1913, (Painters and Etchers Exhibition) February 1914, June 1917, March 1919, July 1919, December 1919, February 1920, Show Day March 1920;
Rochdale Spring Exhibition 1913
Plymouth Art Gallery Spring Exhibition 1917;
Dowdeswell (2)
Notts Castle (3)
Whitechapel (4) Cornish Painters 1902 (exhibition catalogue in Hardie 2009)
BIR (1), DOW (2), GL (1), GI (3), L (8), M (7), NG (1), RA (11), RBA (41), RHA (2), RID (41), ROI (8)
memberships
STIAC1898
RBA 1906
references
Cornishman 28 Mar 1889, 1 Aug 1889
Cornish Telegraph 25 Mar 1909
St Ives Times 19 Nov 1910, 28 Mar 1913, 28 Nov 1913, 6 Feb 1914, 8 May 1914, 29 Jun 1917, 9 Nov 1917, 14 Mar 1919, 4 July 1919, 25 Jul 1919, 12 Dec 1919, 20 Feb 1920, 5 Mar 1920, 19 Mar 1920, 16 Apr 1920 [from WMN]
Benezit
Crespon-Halotier
Hardie (1995) 100 Years in Newlyn: Diary of a Gallery
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall
Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly: Oil Paintings in Public Ownership
Tovey (2009) St Ives: Social History
Whybrow (1994) St Ives
Wood (1995) Victorian Painters
Wormleighton (1998) Morning Tide