Born in London, Copas is one of three brothers who all became painters. He studied drawing at Epsom School of Art and etching at the Royal West of England Academy.
Adopting his mother's maiden name with the intention of avoiding confusion with his brothers (Holt by surname), he departed London for Cornwall and worked for many years as a boatman for the St Levan family of St Michael's Mount. He exhibited regularly both in Newlyn and St Ives.
His subject matter is immensely varied, some from his experience with the sea and boats, and also from sketching visits to Spain, Greece and from literature. He has been commissioned to produce large mural - paintings for such as the headquarters of the Wildfowl Trust at Arundel, and a large Shakespearian painting to travel with the Shakespeare Company Art Collection.
Educated in his native Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Finsbury Park College, London, the artist lived and worked with his wife and fellow-artist Norman GARSTIN (nee Butchart) in Liverpool. Whybrow notices this couple in St Ives in her artists' colony list of 1911-20. Nothing further has been found as yet related to Cornwall.
Whybrow notices the presence of the Theresa Norah Copnall (nee Butchart), and her husband Frank T COPNALL in St Ives sometime during the decade 1911-1920, and implies that Theresa was furthering her studies there (but no detail is given). She initially studied at Slade, Herkomer and in Brussels.
A New Yorker and painter-member of STISA (1932-1933), the artist focused on coastal and marine subjects. Her address by 1934 was in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she painted landscapes.
John Drew MacKENZIE is credited with being the instigator of the Newlyn Copper Industry in 1890 (see NAMI), designing patterns associated with the village and its industries in a naturalistic style which has much in common with the painting of the Newlyn School.
MacKenzie died in 1918, and from then on the style of the class changed; their heyday was over and the best work had, in the main, already been produced. Probably the two most important figures in the history of Newlyn Copperworks, apart from the founders, are Tom BATTEN and Johnny Payne COTTON who took over from MacKenzie and restarted production in 1920.
The painting by Stanhope FORBES The Young Apprentice, Newlyn Copperworks (see Berriman for reprint) depicts a young Johnny Payne Cotton being instructed by J D MacKenzie. The Industrial Class ceased production in 1939 with the outbreak of WWII. Tom Batten died in 1949, while Johnny Payne Cotton restarted production in the 1950s with John Curnow LAITY at Morrab Studio, Penzance.
Alexandra Coppock-Bunce was born in Oxford. Her maternal family roots go back to the Edyvean family of Porthleven and the Paul family of Penzance. Her ancestry has been traced back through the generations to west Cornwall, a natural environment to which Alex has always been drawn.
She grew up in Wantage and attended Faringdon Country Grammar School for Girls. Living in Swindon, she had a career with BT in London. She spent as much time as possible visiting St Ives, taking occasional drawing lessons at St Ives School of Art and studying art with local tutors in Swindon.
In the early 2000s Alexandra took redundancy, re-training as a reiki teacher and psychotherapist. She also became a member of the Wyvern Dowsing Society. in 2004 she was artist in residence at West Swindon Libary and has also exhibited regularly with Swindon Open Studios and the Old Town Art Trail. She is a member of the Swindon Experimental Drawing Hub, using and re-using natural products and found objects. She has also designed magazine and book covers for a life writing group. Her work 'harnesses the subconscious to allow shapes and forms to evolve with minimal manipulation'.
The painter exhibited in the 1923 Show Day in St Ives, and in the following spring showed Over the Roofs at St Ives. She lived at Chy Morvah and worked from St Andrews Studio, St Ives.
After graduating in Fine Art from Newcastle University, Lenny Cornforth exhibited her work in London, Oxford and Edinburgh. She is currently based in Helland, near Bodmin. Her work takes inspiration from the Atlantic and reflects her passion for surfing. The Camel estuary, where she learnt to sail, is a favourite subject for her paintings.
Her work has been widely exhibited in the UK.
Sophie Cornish is a graduate of Plymouth College of Art and lives in Newmill near Penzance.
Quoted from Susan Hack-Lane (2011): 'While early writings used no such title, in 1923 the term Cornish Litany was used in a crafts community in Polperro, a small town in Cornwall. According to a publication in 1926 (F T Nettleinghame, Polperro Proverbs and Others) tourism was thriving there. Young women were taught the craft of poker work (burnt wood designs) and a cottage industry expanded based upon mottoes for all occasions. The Cornish Litany is referred to as one of their first and best selling items. The publication boasted of the artwork of Arthur WRAGG in their souvenir line of pokerwork and postcards.'
To qualify as an item or artefact in the Cornish Litany series the following legend must appear somewhere within the design: A Cornish Litany/From Ghoulies & Ghosties & Long Leggetty Beasties/ And Things That go Bump in the Night/ Good Lord Deliver Us. There are alternative versions of this 'prayer' incorporating other terms for ghoulies & ghosties, such as the witches and wizards of the Devonshire Litany. It has also been adapted (or perhaps originated?) for Scotland and even Somerset, and as the historian Debra Meister has projected for the West Country (Countrie) in general.
The designs are intricate, often lovely in a gruesome and comic sort of way, with flames and would be spectres frightening their observers with masks and grotesque images as appearing to them in dreams and nightmares. Others are cartoonish, and still others in the Beardsley style, which was the age in which they appeared. Meister, through her deep interest in the cultural artefacts connected to Halloween and its traditions, developed an interest in these commercial graphic art works, and has published (now in third edition) a history with illustrations from historic and contemporary design collections.
Known artists with specific connection to Cornwall include Arthur WRAGG, Alice C BUTLER, and possibly the following who may or might not have a direct connection to Cornwall, though they have illustrated the Litany: Stanley Thomas Chaplin, A T Cooper, R J Dymond, Kittie Roberts, Elliot, W J Madley, Victor Jones, Davidge, Stil, Alison McKenzie (1907-1982). A card has recently (2013) been found by Meister with the signature V M HARVEY, and there are traces in auction catalogues, without visual reference, to oil paintings by this artist depicting a harbour with fishing vessels, and one entitled 'Porth Leven Harbour'. As yet, no further information is available.
Anna Corns paints from a tiny garden studio on the edge of Bodmin moor. Her work encompasses a wide range of subjects, including commissioned portraits.
Born in Oldham, Lancashire, Corser has had a long record of working at the Leach Pottery from 1966 to the present day.
After starting at the Leach Pottery as a clay mixer and packer, he went on to serve an apprenticeship at a time when Bernard LEACH was very active in the 1960s, learning greatly from both Bernard and Janet LEACH, and much from William (Bill)MARSHALL. A key figure at the Leach Pottery in the 1980s, he carried the responsibility at the Pottery of maintanance, clay and glaze mixing, and stacking and firing the kiln as well as making his own pots. He enjoyed throwing probably more than anything else, and appreciates the alchemy of opening the kiln door after a firing to find the end results of the pottery process. 'The tactile experience of handling pots is satisfying: shape and the way the glaze feels combine to make the pot.'
An oil painting by this artist of Launceston Castle is part of the English Heritage art collection at Launceston Castle.
Simon Coslett is a painter whose subjects are focussed on west Cornwall.
Jo Cottam was a student at Falmouth College of Art in 1986. Continuing her studies there, she went on to obtain an HND in Ceramic Design, which was followed by a year at the University of Idaho, where she studied Fine Art and Ceramics. Some years later she returned to Falmouth to take a BA (Hons) in Studio Ceramics. Subsequently, at Rolle College, Exmouth, she obtained a PGCE in Secondary School Art. After teaching in Somerset, she returned to Cornwall in 2000 as Head of Art at the Roseland Academy.
Kathleen Cottell makes pots which are designed to give pleasure for everyday use in the kitchen and on the table. She also has a collection of imaginative monoprints and woodcuts, inspired by her love of horses.
She has previously exhibited prints under the name Kathleen SAMPSON.
Mallett's Index lists her as Mrs Leslie Cotton (as does Wood who notes three pictures at RA from a Munich address for her). STIAC records show that M C Cotton, Member, introduced Mrs Robert GRAFTON as a visitor to the Club in April 1912.
Dylan Cotton returned to his native Cornwall in 2011 after living in Bristol. He is based in rural north Cornwall, working from a studio which was formerly a barn. Here he finds the inspiration to indulge his love of painting seascapes.
Canadian painter from Toronto, primarily associated with Glendale, California.
Black and white Studies were accepted by the RA in 1912 from this artist at the same time as those of Alfred HARTLEY. He also sent-in two paintings to Liverpool from an address in St Ives, where he is known to have worked on and off from 1911 to 1916.
He spent the last twelve years of his life in California.
Johnny Cotton and Tom BATTEN took over the running of the Newlyn COPPERWORKS from John Drew MacKENZIE upon his death and restarted production in 1920. The Industrial Class ceased production in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II.
Tom Batten died in 1949, while Johnny restarted production in the 1950s with John Curnow LAITY at Morrab Studio, Penzance. The painting by Stanhope FORBES of The Young Apprentice, Newlyn Copperworks depicts a young Johnny Payne Cotton being instructed by J D MacKenzie. The exhibits made by Cotton loaned for the 1986 NAG exhibition were a mirror with a plain hammered frame, a rose bowl embossed with fish, and a rectangular tray with embossed fishes, shells, and seaweed.
David Cottrell is a painter based in Penzance. He has a BA in Fine Art from Falmouth School of Art and an MFA (Master of Fine Art) from Newcastle University. He was an art educator for many years, latterly in Abu Dhabi. He has a studio at Bosulval, near Newmill.
It is Gordon Couch's background as a boat restorer which is the catalyst for his painting. Born in Cornwall, he spent many years running his own boatyard business. He turned his attention to art in the early 2000s, initially as a watercolourist then developing an individual 'naive' style using oils, acrylics and mixed media to depict the fishermen he knew from his working life. He has exhibited at McAllister Thomas Fine Art in Surrey, and at Plymouth's Morley Gallery.
Couch is represented by the Tyler Gallery in Mousehole.
Jonathan Couch was born in Polperro, the son of Richard Couch, a prosperous fish merchant, and his wife Philippa. He went to school first in Lansallos and then at Bodmin Grammar School. In 1804 he took up a five-year apprenticeship to John Rice, a surgeon apothecary in East Looe. In 1809 he won a place at Guy's & St Thomas' teaching hospitals in London where he was taught anatomy by the celebrated surgeon Astley Cooper.
He became well versed in anatomical drawing and, as a naturalist, was forever dissecting specimens and recording differences in species. He also developed a considerable talent as a watercolourist. In 1824 he was elected a Fellow of the prestigious Linnean Society, and throughout his life he submitted numerous papers both to this Society and the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
While Jonathan gained national recognition as a leading naturalist, it was for his study of fish that he was best known, and he tended to be referred to as 'the Cornish Ichthyologist'. Together with his son, Thomas QUILLER-COUCH, Jonathan produced a History of Polperro. The original manuscript, dated 1855, is held by the Courtney Library, which also holds the large album containing some 243 of his original watercolours of fishes.
A painter, born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, who studied art with Fleetwood Walker, Coudrill had a career as a stage designer during the late 1920s. His industrial and brewery signs were displayed at the Royal College of Art in an exhibition prior to World War II. During the 1940s he worked in film and theatre publicity and created children's television puppets.
During the 1950s he moved to St Ives where he ran his own gallery, the Mermaid Arts Centre. He became a regular exhibitor with the Penwith and Newlyn Art Societies. His son is the artist and musician Jonathon Xavier COUDRILLE.
Jonathon Xavier Coudrille was born at the end of WWII, the son of the artist, Francis COUDRILL, at Landewednack on the Lizard, Cornwall. For half a century he has been a painter, leaving Cornwall in his twenties for London, where he worked both as an illustrator and a writer.
He established the Holmesdale Studios in north London where he both wrote and illustrated A Beastly Collection (1974), Farmer Fisher (1976 Children's Book of the Year) and The Vulgar Frog (1986). In 1990, returning to the family home at Cadgwith, he set up his studio and began to create his surrealist paintings.
He works directly with the Penzance branch of the Society of Authors, and designed the logo for the Inaugural Penzance Literary Festival (2010), also offering solo performances of some of his writings during the August event.