Romaine Brooks, born Beatrice Romaine GODDARD in Italy, was an American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri, specialising in portraiture. She is best known for her images of women in androgynous or masculine dress, including her self-portrait of 1923, which is her most widely reproduced work. While living in London between 1902 and 1904, she spent some time in St Ives, where she developed a palette of fine gradations of grey. From then on her paintings were dominated by grey, white and black. She painted very little after 1925 and died in Nice aged 96.
Drake Brookshaw was a graphic designer, lithographer and illustrator. Born in Southwark, London, he studied at the Central School of Arts & Crafts, subsequently teaching at Goldsmiths College. He drew many book covers, and designed posters for the London Underground in the late 1920s. He also created illustrations for the pre-war Radio Times. During World War II he was trained as an air gunner but once his artistic skill was acknowledged, he was allotted the task of supervising and designing the camouflage for the Manston Air Base. Later he was commissioned as an air photography interpreter, serving in Sicily and Italy. He and his first wife Doreen, a potter, bought a house in Port Isaac in the 1940s. They set up a pottery in Malaga but returned to Port Isaac every summer. Brookshaw showed his work regularly in Cornwall from 1959.
After a serious illness, this charming and modest artist returned permanently to Cornwall in 1992, settling in Wadebridge. Sadly, he died three days before the preview of a retrospective exhibition of his work in Wadebridge.
Born in Wilmslow, Cheshire the son of a distinguished sculptor - also Alan Brough - Alan Brough and his family of accomplished artists and teachers of art have long been respected and admired in West Cornwall. He credits Janet Darnell LEACH and Bernard LEACH with much of his later learning about the art and techniques of pottery-making, although the foundation and appreciation of the importance of clay and its fundamental uses in history - domestically, artistically and even technologically - was absorbed early from his father and upbringing in a creative family environment.
He came first to Cornwall in 1968, at the invitation of the late William MARSHALL, when the latter was required to throw pots for the ageing Bernard LEACH. At that stage, Brough took over teaching students and other duties at the Leach Pottery, and remained there for four years before starting his own pottery at Newlyn near the harbour.
His career, exhibitions, and studio information are liberally documented on the internet, and will not be fully rehearsed here.
The ceramist son of potter Alan BROUGH and the tapestry designer and maker Sheila BROUGH. Adrian was brought from his birthplace in Devon at the age of seven, and attended school in St Ives while his father worked at the LEACH POTTERY. He grew up and earned his pocket money in the surroundings of his father's pottery at Newlyn, where there was always work to be done around the kilns and glazes.
He was taught to throw pots by his neighbour and friend, William MARSHALL, when he entered the four year art and design course at Cornwall Technical College at Camborne. Completing his diploma there (with Distinction in Design), he became a member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen and also the Society for Industrial Artists & Designers. A first commission was achieved from the South West Electricity Board.
His work is exhibited in local galleries and nationally; he works from a bespoke studio at The Old Farmhouse, Lelant, where he mentors students.
Sheila Brough is a textile artist, designer and dressmaker in West Cornwall, and wife of ceramist Alan BROUGH. Having obtained a degree and teaching diploma in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, London, Sheila lectured in fashion design in Newton Abbot during the 1960s. More recently, she was an adult education lecturer in embroidery and textiles at Penzance School of Art. Currently she is offering weekly textile classes at Heamoor, Penzance. She also works as a bridal designer. Her son Adrian BROUGH is based in St Ives, where he has his own pottery and teaching centre.
Noticing a Birmingham exhibition by this artist in 1896, Johnson & Greutzner identify her as giving an address in Teignmouth, Devon. Tovey lists a working life of painting principally still-life in St Ives from 1898 to 1937. She exhibited with the RCPS in Cornwall and was a member of STISA.
Born in Ruddington, near Nottingham, Brown studied at Nottingham School of Art under Andrew McCallum. From 1889 to 1892 he attended the Herkomer School of Art at Bushey. One of the earliest visiting painters to West Cornwall, during the early 1990s he worked from St Ives and Carbis Bay.
An artist giving the name Alfred BROWN exhibited two paintings, A Rough Pasture and A North-west Breeze, in the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1890, and - if this is the same person - indicates association with the Newlyn and St Ives painters even earlier. Also at this period he began exhibiting at the RA. The Drinking Pool, purchased by Manchester in 1895, is a well known and iconic representation of his work in genre.
Popular for his atmospheric treatment of sea and coastal subjects with brooding skies, he helped bring St Ives landscape and marine painting to national prominence, being made one of the first honorary members of STISA in the 1930s.
At the Opening Exhibition of NAG in 1895 he showed a landscape entitled Wherries running down to Yarmouth. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held in 1935 at Norwich Castle Museum, and in 1938 he was knighted. Sir John was also well-known for his Norfolk and Suffolk landscapes, although he did paint some portraits. He was a Royal Academician who deliberately resisted Modernist influences, annd was one of the signatures on the Glanville letter of November 1898 concerned about development schemes in St Ives.
His work The Raincloud, was selected for the 1988 RA Exhibition The Edwardians and After (1900-1950 paintings). He was married to the artist Mia Edwards (see separately under Mia Arnesby BROWN), who predeceased him. He died in Norfolk, his alternative home to that in St Ives for many years.
Born on 14 March 1851 in Chelmsford, Essex, Brown studied at the Royal College of Art (1868-77) and in Paris at Academie Julian with Robert-Fleury and Bougereau (1883). In the Edgbastonia, Fred Brown is noted ‘before his professional days’ to have shared a house in Newlyn in 1881 with eight other artists, including William John WAINWRIGHT, Charles Henry WHITWORTH, Edwin HARRIS and Richard Malcolm LLOYD.
Bednar has noted a Newlyn title by Brown in 1881, and in 1892 he succeeded Alphonse Legros as a Slade Professor. Scott has noted ‘a fairly brief connection with Walberswick’ in his essay on the coastal artists colonies in Painting at the Edge. Brown played an important part in the founding of the NEAC with a number of others, including those from Newlyn. Two of his paintings were purchased in 1933 (Portrait of the Painter) and 1940 (The Ivy Arch) for the Chantrey Bequest. He died on 8 January, 1941, age 89, at Richmond upon Thames.
Born in Monmouthshire, she studied with Professor Herkomer at Bushey, and exhibited at the Nottingham Castle Exhibition of Cornish Painters (1894) as Mia Edwards.
In 1896 she married John Alfred Arnesby BROWN. She was included in many exhibitions with Marianne L M STOKES and Elizabeth FORBES, frequently exhibiting her paintings of children. Her primary exhibiting was in the RA. The couple maintained a home in Norfolk and St Ives, roughly splitting the year between the two, with winter and spring in St Ives.
Born in Glasgow, he studied initially at the Glasgow School of Art under Newbery. At the age of 18 he went to the Slade for five years under Brown, Tonks and Wilson Steer, winning a scholarship and prizes for head and figure painting. For many years he assisted Gerald Moira in mural decoration work in a number of important buildings, such as Lloyds and the Central Criminal Courts, and was in charge of women artists who decorated the first Wembley Exhibition restaurants. In 1894 his address was in London, and in 1911 at Weston Turville nr Aylesbury.
In 1922 he was appointed Principal of the Reigate and Redhill School of Arts and Crafts, a position he retained for 18 years. However, he paid regular visits to Cornwall as the titles of his 1930s exhibition pieces show, and he acted as Temporary Headmaster at the Penzance School of Art in 1941 upon the sudden death of James W LIAS; he was then superseded within the year by the appointment of Edward Bouverie HOYTON to the post.
He settled in St Ives during WWII, living at Lyonesse, Talland Road at the time of his 1944 RA exhibition, but moved with his wife, an accomplished weaver, and elderly sister Marjorie Brown to nearby Carbis Bay in 1946. Mrs Todd Brown was partly responsible for the creation of the Cornwall League of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers. He moved to Torquay in 1950, and died there in 1952.
Born in East Sheen, London, Jennifer came to Cornwall first in 1953 on holiday, after having a range of shopkeeping, child-minding and infant teaching jobs. Her works are meticulous, beautifully and finely drawn, and show a quirky and hilarious sense of humour.
Mentioned in Whybrow's 1901-10 list of artists in and around St Ives.
Peter Brown was born in Hertfordshire but moved with his parents to St Just in 1951. He was educated at Penzance Grammar School. After leaving school, he obtained a place at Falmouth Art School (1963-1965), where one of his tutors was DERRICK WILSHAW, who had in 1947 founded the Lamorna Pottery. Brown subsequently attended the Central School of Art & Design in Holborn but did not complete the course.
Returning to Cornwall, he gained valuable experience setting up a pottery at Lands End. In 1966 he married Shirley Jago and, with financial assistance from his widowed mother, was able to purchase the Lamorna Pottery, which had suffered from poor management. In order to support his growing family, Brown altered the ethos of the pottery by turning to slip cast items. These utilitarian pieces were popular and were key to making the business more commercially viable.
During the 1970s, when Bruce Forsyth's 'Generation Game' featured members of the public attempting to throw a pot, the Lamorna Pottery created a 'Throw a Pot' area. This novelty attracted a flow of tourists eager to try their hand, which led to the need to provide refreshments, initially sold from a shed manned by Peter's mother. Other family members became involved in the pottery too - in particular Peter's wife Shirley, who became proficient at glazing and decorating, and packing pots for shipment to customers.
In 1980/1981 substantial extensions were made to the pottery, including a new showroom and craft centre. Students were employed to run the coffee bar and manage the 'Throw a Pot' area. The reputation of the pottery grew to the extent that commissions were received from local clubs and organisations for the creation of trophies and commemorative items. Peter had little time for art pieces but some of his bowls and large cylinder pots have survived.
In 1988 Peter Brown retired from the pottery, which was sold to Osmond Rego.
Lizzie Brown embarked on her painting practice as a consequence of studying for a degree in the History of Art with the Open University. She works from a studio in Coverack.
Ellie Brown works from a studio space in Trenoweth quarry, Mabe. She graduated from Falmouth University in 2020 and co-founded Quarry-House Collective. Her artistic journey is marked by a deep connection to the female form.
Ellie Brown's global exploration culminated in the International Ice Carving Festival in Jelgava, Latvia, in January 2023, and the Halifax Stone Carving Festival in May 2023. A defining moment in Ellie’s career came with the creation of her first solo public sculpture at the 3rd International Sculpture Symposium in Saint Martin du Gers, France.
Since her return from a two-month residency in France, she has continued with her studies by embarking on an online MA in Fine Art at Central St Martins.
In 2024 she was selected as 'Young Penwith Artist' by the Penwith Society of Arts.
Rachel Brown works in mixed media textiles to create works inspired by subjects such as fish and birds around her in the village of Lerryn.
Colin Brown is a Christian minister based in Falmouth, and his paintings depict places that have inspired, challenged, encouraged or moved him.
Ian Brown studied at Hornsey College of Art from 1980 – 1983. He was elected an associate member of the Newlyn Society of Arts in 2007 and is currently serving on the committee for the Newlyn Society. He has an extensive cv including exhibitions at Royal West of England Academy, Beardsmore Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Brighton University Gallery and London Print Works. He lives and works in West Cornwall.
My work, represents my attempt to use photography in the same way that I used to work with paint. The figures and landscape captured separately and worked together to invent a hybrid space with distinct photographic and painterly qualities.
Michele Brown is a painter and printmaker working from a studio in St Just, near Penzance.
Brown was born in Jersey, graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1999, and to start with, began work as a professional artist in Brighton. After a brief return to Jersey where she established her studio in an historic barracks from the Napoleonic era, and some time in France, she and her artist partner Heath HEARN settled in Cornwall on the Rame Peninsula (2006).
Katy and Heath, alongside a contemporary group of other artists, including the British abstract artist, Steve JOY, have established their studios in yet another Napoleonic-period barracks, in Cornwall at 'Maker Heights'. She works primarily in oil with palette knife and brush.
Ingrid Brown is a portrait, figurative and plein air artist living in west Cornwall. In 2011 she obtained a BA in History of Art from York University, followed by an MA in Architectural History and Theory.
Her work has been exhibited in Cornwall and London. She works to commission.
The artist exhibited two paintings under this name in the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1890. Their titles were A Rough Pasture and A North-west Breeze.
The daughter of Daniel Brown, a paint manufacturer, she lived in London (Forest Gate) and exhibited at RA from 1883-87.
The 1891 Census lists her as an Artist, born in Bath, Somerset, and living at Trevordun Place, Falmouth. By 1893 she was living in New Barnet, Herts. Not known to have exhibited locally.
Brown was an artist, known by caricature (Fitz, p267 in Tovey 2009) to be a Scot. He is listed in the 1901 Census as the 20 year-old artist/painter son of John Eccles Brown, an India Rubber Manufacturer, living on Porthminster Hill. From Census data (1901), however, he was stated to have been born in St Ives.
An H Brown is known to have attended the Falmouth School of Art in 1912, and to have submitted one work to the RA, but this may or may not be the same person. No further information is currently available at this time.
Born in Warminster, Wiltshire, the artist was a London-based painter (address in Swiss Cottage) until the 1891 Census, when he and his wife, Edith Clara, were living in the parish of St Uny, Lelant, near St Ives.
His painting for the 1890 exhibition at Dowdeswells, which was entitled November Weather-St Ives, indicates that they had moved to Cornwall some time earlier. His daughter Constance Mabel, 3 years old at that time, had been born in Berlin, an Overseas British subject.
Warne Browne exhibited at Newlyn from the opening exhibition in 1895, his paintings always proving popular. A major sale he achieved at NAG was of seven sketches on sea subjects in 1899. By 1901 he and his wife and three daughters had moved to live in Ruan Minor, the address he gave for exhibition purposes. He was a member of the NSA. Although he exhibited at the Royal Academy, he did not achieve the recognition he deserved in the UK. However, his seascapes were sought after by Americans.
Tovey has found an image of Pilchard Fishing with the Seine Net, reproduced in 1901 in The Sphere, which was simultaneously showing at an exhibition at the St James Gallery in London. This scene shows a large group of fisherman working their large seine net, possibly off the coast of St Ives, though the location is indeterminate.
In 1905 he exhibited two paintings at NAG, which were both sold to a Liverpool buyer, Winter Weather and Lizard Coast; and Kynance two years later. In 1913 he resided at Lower Shiplake, Oxon.
Upon his death in Ruan Minor from a stroke in 1915, the artist was described in the Helston Advertiser and the West Briton as 'a true Bohemian, with a highly developed artistic temperament. Mr Warne Browne loved the sea, and painted it with a sincerity and fidelity which ought to have secured for him a higher place in the world of art'.
The artist exhibited at the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1890, with the painting Sundown which indicated earlier visits to West Cornwall.
In 1894-1902 he was exhibiting from 5 Pembroke Studios, Kensington, and by 1910 his address was at Palace Gate in the West End of London where he remained until 1917 or after.