Mary McCROSSAN
McCrossan was born in Liverpool, studying first at the Liverpool School of Art under John Finnie and then attending the Academie Delecluse, Paris [Wood says Julian's Academie], where she achieved a number of awards, before arriving in St Ives to study under Julius OLSSON (1897-1899).
Her earliest known St Ives title was shown in 1898. Adopting the town as her own, and using it as her base, she ran a painting school from her Porthmeor studio and exhibited harbour and coastal pictures from St Ives up to her death. Painting chiefly in oil colour, she also produced many impressionist studies in watercolour of cloud effects over Porthmeor Beach; she specialised in painting the sea.
McCrossan travelled extensively on the Continent, exhibiting dazzling oils from Provence and the Mediterranean at the NEAC and London galleries. She worked variously during the mid-1920s from 7 The Terrace, 9 Porthmeor Studios and 3 Seagull House, and her titles include Round House, Sennen (1927), Brixham (1933), Still Life and one of the paintings she exhibited at the RA: St Ives Harbour (Ill, Exh Cat, Falmouth). In 1928 she visited Polperro, producing Saturday Morning, Polperro. She made St Ives her permanent home in 1929. In 1934 she suffered a stroke, which proved fatal.
Her name has also been seen written as 'MaCrossan' (Wallace) and other variations.
media
Painter of landscapes, figures, flowers, marine subjects; teacher
works and access
Works include: Round House, Sennen (1927); Brixham (1933); Still Life; St Ives Harbour; The Harbour, St Ives; St Ives; Interior with Still Life (1949); Polperro by Moonlight
Access to works: Liverpool; Salford; Southport; Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead; Rochdale; St Ives Town Council (Interior with Still Life)
exhibitions
RBA (67)
NEA (30)
RA (22)
NAG
STISA (Touring)
Beaux Arts Gallery, London Landscapes of Provence and Cornwall 1928
Falmouth Art Gallery Women Artists (Group) 1996
Penlee House, Penzance Women Painters in Cornwall (Group) 2002
Penlee House, Penzance Sea Change - Art in St Ives 1914-1930 (Group): The Round House, Sennen
memberships
Sandon Studios Society, Liverpool
Liver Sketching Society
STISA: 1928-34
RBA: 1927-34
references
Athenaeum (1923) Vol XXXII (p 590)
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall
Hoyle, H (Sept 2010 Women Artists in Cornwall www.cornishmuse.blogspot.com) Review of 'Sea Change' exhibition, Penlee House)
Mallett's Index
RCPS exhibitors list (J F Tonkin)
Tovey (2000) GF Bradshaw & STISA (Appendix 3: Principal Members of STISA 1927-1960)
Tovey (2003) Creating a Splash
Tovey (2010) Sea Change - Art in St Ives 1914-1930
Tovey (2021) Polperro - Cornwall's Forgotten Art Centre - Volume Two - Post-1920, Wilson Books
Wallace et al (1996) Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 (under MaCrossan)
The Studio Vol 83: 15 Apr 1922 (col pl: Amalfi)
Wood (1995) Victorian Painters
Who's Who in Art
Wormleighton (1998) Morning Tide: J A Park and the Painters of Light
Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly: Oil Paintings in Public Ownership