Dorothy Bordass (nee Foster) was born in London. She studied as an illuminator under Alberto Sangorski, and at Harrow School of Art. During the 1920s she was a student at the Academie Julian in Paris, and at the Heatherley School of Fine Art. During the 1930s and 1940s her artistic career was interrupted by marriage, a young family, and World War II.
In the early 1950s, while in Malaya, her work developed from the figurative to pure abstraction. At an exhibition at the Singapore Art Society, Bordass heard about Peter LANYON and William REDGRAVE's new abstract art school, St Peter's Loft, in St Ives. Returning to England for Christmas in 1954, she studied there for several months in early 1955, on a residential course which included accommodation at the Redgrave's house. Later that year she returned to St Ives, renting a small house and sharing a studio with the engraver John BARCLAY, who taught her drypoint and helped her to acquire her own press. In 1957 she exhibited at the important Metavisual Tachiste Abstract at London's Redfern Gallery, and the following year her work was included in the Arts Council of Great Britain Tour.
She bought a house in St Ives for the family to move to after Malaysia became independent in 1957.
Dorothy Bordass lived in France, Italy, Germany, Egypt and Malaya, and travelled widely in Europe, the Middle East and Far East. Her work has been shown in many commercial galleries and public exhibitions, and appears in numerous private collections in Canada, England, Eire, Holland, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and in the USA.
Her work is eclectic, on both abstract and representational themes, and in many media including oils, acrylics and gouache; pencil, charcoal and pastel drawings; etchings, engravings and aquatints; linocuts and collages.
In the 1970s she moved to Cambridge, and her work became largely figurative due to her great interest in objective drawing.
Sandra Boreham is a sculptor and installation artist based near Falmouth. In 1994 she graduated from Falmouth School of Art with a BA in Fine Art Sculpture. Her work, influenced by extensive travels in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and a fascination for alchemy, is underpinned by an exploration of spiritual growth which has found expression in the study of the Tai Chi Dance. She has said that her work 'reflects the vibrancy of life and the natural order of decay and death'. Her pieces combine natural and manmade materials such as wood and bronze.
Boreham's work has been exhibited widely not only in Cornwall, but in London and abroad. From 2007 to 2010 she was a visiting lecturer at Cornwall College and was Artist in Residence there in 2011. in 2014 she represented Cornwall at the Festival Interceltic de Lorient in France.
Probably born in Cornwall, Emily Borlase was the Secretary to whom enquiries were made for lessons in the 'Study from the Life and Landscape' in advertisements for the Newlyn & Penzance Art Students' Society (directed by Norman GARSTIN). She was also known to have been a pupil at the Penzance School of Art.
In 1900 at NAG she exhibited and sold On the Isola, Reflections and A Sunny Corner - Quimperle, and in 1901 Hopital de Saint Anna. In 1902 her sales were 2 paintings of Market Place, Dinan, and she also exhibited a painting at NAG Winter Exhibition 1911 entitled Dartmoor. She was listed as one of the Lenders of Art Treasures from Cornwall when Newlyn held its First Loan Exhibition in 1936. Her sending-in address was The Coombe, Penzance.
Antiquarian and author, W C Copeland was born at Castle Horneck, near Penzance, Cornwall and much influenced by the archeological and historical work carried out by his ancestor, the great Cornish historian Dr William Borlase.
Together with William Collings LUKIS, this artist produced 40 tinted lithographic plates of Cornish cromlechs, stone circles, beehive huts, said to be the most accurate drawings ever produced. These were published with the title Prehistoric Stone Monuments of the British Isles: Cornwall by the Society of Antiquaries in 1885. He is also reported to have made the initial sketches for the exploration of the Fogou at Carn Euny, upon which John Thomas BLIGHT relied for his engravings for the final report (Wikipedia).
Unfortunately his political life (Member of Parliament, JP) and economic ruin caused his family to disown him, and he died at a relatively young age (51), bankrupt and isolated, in Bloomsbury, London.
Referred to in the list created by the St Ives Archive Trust, as an artist about whom some information is held.
Painter In the Annual Show of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in September 1846. The artist displayed two landscapes in oils and was presented with the Second class prize.
Born in Hastings, Borrow studied painting in London at Leigh's School and specialised in marine subjects, which he exhibited from 1863-90. J&G give exhibiting dates of 1880-1901, and broadens the exhibition base.
Tovey shows the image of a menu drawn up for the Adrian STOKES Chantrey (purchase by the Bequest fund) Supper on 31 August, 1888 in St Ives, on which Borrow's signature appears. The artist is noted for coastal scenes, mainly in Devon and Cornwall, and was a regular visitor to the county from 1863. His painting of Polperro, which was hung at the Royal Academy in 1885, is one of his finest works and one of the most atmospheric of the early depictions of the village.
An art student, mentioned in Whybrow's 1921-1939 list. No further information is currently available.
A painter of Dutch parentage, born in Amsterdam, who travelled widely in Holland, France and Italy. He studied art at Munich, and in 1889 achieved an Hon Mention in the Salon des Artistes Francais.
He appears to have settled in St Ives over a long period, or at least to have associated himself with the Colony from before the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1890, as he displayed For He's a Jolly Good Fellow at £21 in that show, an establishing exhibition for painters connected to Cornwall. At the Whitechapel Exhibition of 1902 he exhibited St John's Procession, Laren, Holland, with an explanatory note to say that he had been part of the Cornish School at St Ives. In between those two defining exhibitions for Cornish art, he also exhibited at the RA, Suffolk Street and the New Gallery in London.
Tovey comments that Bosch Reitz came to St Ives with a group of student friends from Paris in the mid-1890s, but it would appear that he had been in Cornwall earlier. This may only have been a return trip, from which time he took possession of a Porthmeor Studio on the Back Road (Tovey 2009 p 141: photo of studio). His Harbour at St Ives, that won a medal in the Paris World Exposition in 1900, can be seen in Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Sometimes listed as Bosch-Reitz, and S C Boschreitz is one of the signatures found.
A craftworker who exhibited at the NAG Arts and Crafts Exhibition (1926) in an Unspecified category.
Christine Boston is an artist working in fused glass. She lives at Perranuthnoe near Penzance.
Fred Bottomley was educated at Truro High School, although Southport, Lancashire appears to be his home territory. From school he followed his father into the cotton business, but during WWI left to join the Forces, spending three years in France. After the Armistice he decided to devote his life to art, and studied at the Slade from 1923-25, having married and settled in Kent.
After eighteen months exploring England, he and his wife arrived in St Ives in 1929, living at Salubrious House, Fore Street. Fred worked from Porthmeor and Dragon Studios, Norway Square. During WWII he seems to have moved back to Southport for a couple of years. Paintings of the harbour, lifeboat slip-way and Downalong in St Ives, were among 10 pictures exhibited at the RA between 1931 and 1944. He returned permanently to Southport in 1952.
New work by this artist was included in the 2009 exhibition at the Leach Pottery, St Ives, entitled 'The Flower Show' which focussed on ceramic vessels for the art of flower display.
Virginia Bounds works from Anchor Studio in Newlyn, part of Trewarveneth Studios. This was once the location of Stanhope and Elizabeth FORBES' art school. Subsequently Anchor Studio became the working space of JOHN WELLS.
Bounds was a recipient in 2014 of an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts award for an 18-month artistic development programme. This enabled her to develop her subject matter and create new paintings based on the landscape and evocative plantings at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.
She became a member of STISA in 2025.
Born 1851 at Madras, Tamil Nadu, the son of a British civil servant, Frank studied at the Slade School of Art when age 31 and then spent a year in Paris (1983-84). He moved to Cornwall (Polperro) in 1886 and came to Newlyn in 1887, remaining until 1892. Henry Meynell RHEAM was to make the same transition a year or two later. In 1889 Frank lived at Belle Vue House with Mrs Maddern, in the same house as Stanhope FORBES, and became a particular friend of Norman GARSTIN whose work he greatly admired.
The 1891 Census lists 'F Bosendillon' [sic] as living at 35 Paul Hill with Mrs Roberts. Lodging in the same house were Mary and William D FROSTEAGUE, the latter an artist painter from Birmingham. Bourdillon painted romantic Elizabethan seascapes, also landscapes and figures, and liked to paint models in period costumes en plein air.
He decided to leave art and painting in 1892 to become a CMS Missionary in Burdwan, India (1896-1901), where he married a fellow missionary, Kathleen Edwards. Due to ill health, they returned to England, and Frank took up a curacy in Ramsgate before becoming the Rector of Horton, Gloucestershire (1914-1923). Bourdillon died on 18 February, 1924, aged 72, at Little Sodbury, nr Chipping Sodbury, south Gloucestershire (GRO).
The whereabouts of his collection of letters, which show him to have been generous and concerned for his fellow artists [as reported in Fox & Greenacre], are unaccounted for, and are unfortunately not lodged in the WCAA.
Bob Bourne was born in Exmouth, Devon and was evacuated as a child during the war years to Bermuda. His schooling was undertaken back in England at Brighton. Bob had a variety of working environments in West Cornwall and elsewhere, including a spell in Perth, Australia.
Primarily a self-taught painter, Cross considered Bourne's paintings in his chapter on 'realism, imagination and fantasy' artists, the combination of qualities and styles that Bob employed in his vivid and intense pieces.
A major solo show was held at Belgrave St Ives in 2011 to celebrate Bob Bourne's 80th birthday: 'Bourne at Eighty'.
Bob Bourne died in Helston in July 2021.
Eve Bourrat is a freelance illustrator and designer from France, who came to the UK to study art. She settled in Cornwall in 1997 and graduated in 2001 with a BA (Hons) in Illustration from University College Falmouth.
Pete Bousfield is an artist based on Bodmin moor. In the 1960s he was a student at Bournemouth College of Art & Design, subsequently becoming a teacher at Launceston College.
His 3D artworks, denoting paths of energy lines, are made from coloured acrylic strips, painted onto carved layers of MDF sheet, then fixed together onto clear acrylic sheet, so that each piece of work appears to 'float' off the wall.
His work has been shown throughout the West Country, and in Brittany.
A painter who exhibited in St Ives in 1913-14, and who occupied Chy-an-Chy Studio until at least 1917 (Tovey, p185), in the area where Fore Street meets The Wharf. She lived at Terrace House (Whybrow), and exhibited with the Dudley Gallery and the Society of Women Artists (SWA).
Charles Boutwood was born in Luton, Bedfordshire. The artist came to Cornwall with his friend Herbert Edward BUTLER in 1884. They had met as students at the Royal Academy Schools. While visiting Polperro, they met their future wives, the two Pond sisters, Thirza and Sophia.
Boutwood's paintings at the RA in 1885 got a mixed reception, but after studying at the Academie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau his work improved and his best-known painting of Polperro entitled 'The Young Fishermen' is now part of the Christine Schwartz collection in Chicago. He and Thirza were married in New York in 1889 and settled in Chicago, though they returned to Polperro several times. He helped to found the Chicago Society of Artists, serving as its first president.
Laura Bowden was born in Helston, and was a child model of Lady Edna CLARKE HALL at Gillan Creek on the Fal, where the Clarke Hall couple kept a summer cottage.
A correspondent (2013) has found a painting of Clovelly Harbour signed by L Bowden in his mother's attic, and may be offering it for sale by auction in the near future.
A further correspondent (2014) has written: I read recently that there was an interest in L Bowden and details were requested. We have two watercolours, signed by L Bowden: Mousehole, Cornwall and St Ives.
2015: a) We also have a water colour painting called 'Crazy Kate's Cottage' by L. Bowden, discovered in my mother-in-law's attic. It was given as a present in 1936. b) I have 2 water colours or possible prints: 'The Bridge, Jesmond Dene' and 'The Old Mill, Jesmond Dene', signed by L Bowden. They were in my grandmother's cottage in the early 1950's and my father thought she had received them as wedding presents; he was born in 1920. c) The following watercolours are added to her 'Known list' - Dunston Exmoor, Clovelly Devon, Porlock Exmoor. d) 2015: Two correspondents have written to say that they have works by L Bowden. One reader has two watercolours/or prints which illustrates the artist's visit to the English lakes, one being of Grasmere Church and the other of a watermill. The second correspondent reports rescuing a watercolour of a turn of the 20th-century boating scene, signed L Bowden. A third writer has a signed watercolour of Dunster, by 'Ly Bowden'. Is this the same artist? 2015 - Thirty years ago when a correspondent inherited her aunt's house, two paintings by Laura Bowden were left: one of St Michael's Mount and the other of Mevagissey. Many thanks to new readers for helping to build this list; in answer to several queries however, we have no further biographical information about this artist. Should more come to light we will post it here.
2016: A correspondent has been in touch to report the acquisition at a car boot sale of a painting or print, signed 'L Bowden' entitled 'Grasmere Church'.
2018: We have been contacted by a correspondent who has a print or watercolour by L Bowden entitled 'The Old Mill, Jesmond Dene' which he purchased 40-50 years ago.
2019: A correspondent reports that he has come across a print by L Bowden entitled 'The Openings, Robin Hood's Bay' depicting a woman walking down a steeply sloped stepped street between cottages.
2019: A further correspondent has written to tell us of two signed prints by L Bowden, showing scenes in Clovelly and Whitby.
2022: We have been told of a print by L Bowden of 'The Openings', a cobbled street in Robin Hoods Bay, which has been in the correspondent's family for many years.
2023: A correspondent informs us of two prints found in Norwill, Lancs, of St Michaels Mount and Mevagissey Harbour.
2024: A correspondent from Australia has told us of a lovely print in her possession which depicts East Cliff, Whitby (Ref. P267/3).
2024: We have been told of two further images by Bowden: 'Mousehole, Cornwall' and 'Crazy Kate's Cottage'.
2025: Works by this artist continue to emerge - this time, a print of a watercolour discovered in an attic at a house clearance, showing the coast around Staithes, Yorkshire, with sailing boats.
2025: Another correspondent has told us of two Lake District paintings she has been given, one of Grasmere Church, and one of a house on the bridge at Ambleside. Until recently these works resided in a house in Whitehaven, Cumbria.
Clare Bowen grew up in Hayling, Hampshire. In 2021 she moved to Newlyn.
Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the UK.
She became a member of STISA in 2025.