Midge BRUFORD
The artist was born at Eastbourne, coming to West Cornwall because of her friendship with Mornie BIRCH, made while they were both pupils at Badminton House in Clifton, Bristol.
She began her art training at the FORBES SCHOOL in the early 1920s, with the informal tuition of Lamorna BIRCH, and spent time thereafter in Paris. She remained active in Lamorna, St Ives and Newlyn artistic circles until 1955, and lived variously in Paul Village, Newlyn and Truro from 1924-1955. Primarily she painted portraits and landscapes.
Midge also attended painting classes with Harold HARVEY and Ernest PROCTER. Her paintings were signed "Midge" or "Bruford". Dod PROCTER painted several portraits of her (See p189 of A Painter Laureate, Lamorna Birch and his circle, by Austin Wormleighton).
media
Portrait and landscape painter
works and access
Works include: Tregeseal; Trevillies Gardens; Grampound Road; Flowers (1927); Lizzie Annie Hocking (1930); The Gypsy Camp; High summer cattle in a Cornish landscape (1946); Cornricks Before a Farm (1951); Boleigh Farm; Cadgwith Cove and Landewednack (all exhibited NAG1937)
Access: Eastbourne; NAG Permanent Collection; Penlee House, Penzance (The Gypsy Camp, Portrait of 'Elephant Bill' 1956)
exhibitions
RA (32)
Walker Gallery, Liverpool
NEAC
Goupil
NAG 1924, Spring Show 1925, December 1925, Spring Show 1926, Dec 1926, Dec 1927, 1937
Falmouth Art Gallery Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 1996
Her portrait of Lt Col Williams OBE (known as 'Elephant Bill') was exhibited in the Portraiture Exhibition at Penlee House, Penzance 2005
memberships
NSA 1925 ff (Committee)
STISA 1938-58
references
Cornishman 8 Dec 1926; 24 & 31 Mar 1926
Western Morning News 21 Mar 1925, Mar 1927
Brewster Artists of Lamorna (unpublished manuscript)
Fox (1985) Painting in Newlyn 1900-1930
Graves British Artists 1880-1940
Hardie (1990) In Time & Place, Lamorna
Hardie (2009) Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall (p157 col pl Gypsy Camp)
Johnson & Gruetzner (1975) Dictionary of British Artists
Newton et al (2005) Painting at the Edge
Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly: Oil Paintings in Public Ownership
Tovey (2000) GF Bradshaw & STISA (Appendix 3: Principal Members of STISA 1927-1960)
Tovey (2022) Lamorna - An Artistic, Social and Literary History - Volume II - Post-1920, Wilson Books
Wallace Under the Open Sky
Wallace et al (1996) Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 (Exh catalogue)
Wormleighton (1995) A Painter Laureate;
Signed Mornie's pig book (Patten People 4) with pig (1940): In Time & Place Lamorna