Sheila Oliner was born in London. Her training in art began at the age of 15 at the Slade School of Fine Art, followed by the City & Guilds. During the 1970s, while bringing up her three children, she worked at Studio Prints in London, studying under the printmaker Dorothea Wight. She taught art at the Camden Arts Centre, and made 84 plates for her friend, the painter Philip Sutton.
In 1985 Oliner moved to Zennor and had a studio in St Ives. She initiated and raised funds for Porthmeor Printmakers Workshop. In 1990, with a group of artists who also worked in the medium of printmaking, she was part of the Porthmeor Printmakers, along with Roy RAY, John EMANUEL and Stephen DOVE. Their combined portfolios of work gave much needed support financially to the Penwith Galleries, and the education facilities of the Tate St Ives.
Sheila was for a number of years the tutor in printmaking at the Penzance School of Art. Her subject matter revolved around the lives of women, their relationships and their position in society. Her works were exhibited widely in the UK, and toured with the Arts Council. Further afield, she showed works in the USA, Norway, Israel, and Japan, where she enjoyed particular success.
Sheila Oliner died in London on 20 April 2020, at the age of 89. She is survived by three children, one of whom, Rebecca, is also an artist.
Born in Islington, London, the son of a Swedish father and English mother, the 'artist was within him' and he was wholly self-taught. Listed by Marriott as a daring yachtsman and St Ives artist, responsible for the concoction of Swedish punch, a mystic ceremony, for the New Year celebrations at the Arts Club where they met every Saturday night. He did more than any other painter to stamp St Ives as a British outpost of impressionism. He ran the Cornish School of Landscape, Figure and Sea Painting in St Ives, first with Louis GRIER and subsequently with Algernon Mayow TALMAGE.
In 1887 at the Nineteenth Century Art Society, which kept a small gallery at Dudley, West Yorkshire, 'Mr J Olsson shows a distinct poetic feeling in his treatment of March Twilight: Newlyn, Cornwall.' [AJ, 1887, p413]. This would seem to indicate that he had been in Cornwall earlier than was previously thought (at the age of 22-23 rather than 26 as previously listed for his arrival in Cornwall).
He and his wife, Kathleen (also an artist) designed and built their own home, St Eia, which contained many Arts & Crafts features (later an hotel). Students included Reginald Guy KORTRIGHT Emily CARR, Mary McCROSSAN and John Anthony PARK amongst many others. His influence as a teacher spread over a generation or more of young painters from Britain and overseas. He resided at St Ives for two decades until 1912, when he returned to London and shortly thereafter was elected an Associate of the RA. Olsson cruised with his yacht most summers.
The Studio commented: 'He knows the way from the Scillies to the Isle of Wight as most men know their way to the nearest railway station.' His work was in the late impressionist style of Henry MOORE. At the 1895 NAG Opening, Olsson exhibited two paintings, the largest Astray (a flock of sheep wandering over yellow towans), and the second, a seascape. His first sale of a painting at Newlyn was in 1897 and he exhibited regularly thereafter, selling Moonrise (1902), Off the Needles (1904) Summer Calm (1910). Other titles included Dunluce Castle, Gale Subsiding, A Moonlit Shore (1911, oils). Tovey describes well how immensely Olsson contributed to many aspects of creative and social life in St Ives, and how he remained supportive and connected to the art colony for the rest of his life. His old studio, the vast Number 5, Porthmeor Studios became STISA's first dedicated gallery space.
Olsson died of cardiac failure at St Heliers, Dalkey, Co Dublin in Ireland while on a visit to his sister-in-law's home. (Birth and death certificates/Bednar files)
Izumi Omori draws inspiration not only from Cornwall, but also from Japan, to produce semi-abstract works in a distinctive, captivating style. It is said that her work combines 'Japanese deliacy with Cornish strength'.
Edward was born and brought up at Harmony Cot, Mithian, near St Agnes. He was brought up always aware of the fame of his great-uncle John OPIE RA, 'The Cornish Wonder'. The senior Opie had been born in the same family cottage, but died five years before Edward was born.
At sixteen, tutored to emulate the work of his predecessor, he went to London in May 1826. For the first time he was able to see the work of John Opie at such revered places as the Royal Academy and Lander comments on the excitement he gained from the experience. He was well-received by John's artist friends, and later in the year he visited John's widow, Amelia, still living in Norwich.
By 1830 he had settled in Truro, where he painted portraits of local personages, managing to accomplish this at a rate of one a week. Mrs Amelia Opie visited Edward and Cornwall for the first time, and was delighted to visit Harmony Cot where her late husband had been brought up, having heard so much about it.
In 1832 Edward left Cornwall for London again for further study, beginning a pupilage under Henry Peronet Briggs, RA, where intensive copying of other works helped hone his skills as a portraitist, and gradually he attempted more imaginative themes, although the failure of one of his portraits at the Royal Academy in 1834 caused great distress. He started to paint "in a wild experimental way", going to Paris and working at the Louvre for four months before returning to London.
In 1850 he married Margaret Thomas in St Ives, so had evidently been travelling back to the West Country quite regularly. By 1857 he was giving a Plymouth address, and in 1871 was apparently back at St Agnes; from 1872 until his death he was giving both as his addresses. During his life he had no less than forty nine paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy. In an age before camera, portraits earned an artist his living, although Edward painted many other scenes which reflected his love of Cornish life as well as appealing to Victorian sentiments. [Words, thanks to Viv Hendra, Lander Galleries, Truro].
The 'Cornish Wonder' was born at St Agnes, near Redruth, the son of a woodworker and carpenter. He began his travels at the age of 15 as a travelling portrait painter under the patronage of his discoverer and tutor, the physician/artist, Dr William Wolcot, and moved around the county painting on commission to the leading merchant and banking families of the county.
Padstow, Penryn, Penzance, Fowey and Falmouth were all, in turn, visited, where he was commissioned to paint different studies as well. Sir Rose Price of Trengwainton, for example, having seen some of Opie's pictures of old men and beggars, commissioned him to paint An Aged Beggar as seen on the streets of Penzance. Amongst the early Opie patrons were the families of St Aubyn, Carne, Penwarne, Prideaux, Daniell, Vivian, Grylls, Rashleigh, Giddy and Scobell (7 portraits of the family at Nancealverne). He was also to paint the famed Cornish legendary people, Dolly Pentreath (last Cornish language speaker) and John Knill (of St Ives). A recent discovery has been made (in a midlands auction room) of a neglected portrait by Opie of a young Falmouth girl, Lydia Gwennap, who was later to become the wife and co-philanthropist with her husband John Broadley Wilson in Clapham, London, where their contributions 'to moral and reforming societies' came second only to William Wilberforce himself. [Carter, 2013]
Wolcot promoted his protegee's talents far and wide and took him to London in 1781, one of his earliest commissions being from the King for another famous Cornish connection, Mrs Delany. In London, even more than being 'The Cornish Wonder' Opie was hailed as the 'English Rembrandt'. From 1782 to 1807 he exhibited at the RA, gaining associate status then full Academy membership rapidly. He married twice, Mary Bunn (December, 1782), a young girl whom he had painted, and who he placed second to his work, and in 1798 to Amelia Alderson, a literary personage of merit, who outlived him and came to Cornwall in her own later years to pay her respects to his home country.
John Passmore EDWARDS gave the gift of the Newlyn Art Gallery to the artists in memory of John Opie, and upon occasion it has been called the Opie Gallery at Newlyn in accordance with the engraved plaque across the streetside front.
Edward Andrew Opie was the second son of the Cornish portrait painter, Richard OPIE, and his wife Agnes Andrew, who lived at Stithians and in Falmouth, and moved to Plymouth in the late 1820s. In 1838 Edward Andrew Opie left for Australia, arriving at Port Adelaide in March 1839 on the d'Auvergne. He earned his living as an actor and scene painter, advertising that he could paint portraits, clean and repair oil paintings, and teach drawing. In the early 1840s he moved between towns and theatres. In the mid-1840s he and Mary Jane Devonshire had a son together, Edward Andrew Devonshire Opie.
From 1845 Edward Andrew Opie lived in Melbourne for three years, where he worked as a painter of portraits and views of the town. In the late 1840s he returned to acting and scene painting at the theatre in Adelaide. During the Victorian gold rush, he was in Geelong before returning to Melbourne. Little is known of the last two decades of his life. He died in Melbourne.
Three 20th century landscape paintings by this artist are in the collection of art collated by the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust.
Richard Opie was the eldest child of the Cornish portrait painter of the same name and Agnes Andrew. As a young child he lived in Stithians until the mid-1820s, when his father began to travel in Cornwall and to Plymouth as he established his reputation, and probably obtained commissions, as a portrait painter. The family lived for a time in Falmouth, where the younger Richard Opie was listed as a 'carver and gilder' in the 1841 census, and he may have been working alongside his father as a picture frame maker. By 1844, in his 30th year, the younger Richard Opie was listed in a Plymouth trade directory. Two years later he married Matilda Howell, and they lived in Plymouth with their family, where his parents were also living by 1851.
The Census of 1841 lists Richard Opie and his wife Agnes, both born within the county, as living at Falmouth in Porhan Street, with their seven children. Richard (senior), age 45, was by occupation an artist, and his eldest child, also Richard OPIE Jnr, age 25, is noticed as a 'carver and gilder', which may also refer to the making of artists' frames.
Colin Orchard was born in Ewell, Surrey and began his occupational life as a typographer and lay-out artist for The Times newspaper. For 10 years he worked as an Art Director for Letraset International, before taking up freelance graphic design.
Coming to St Ives in 1983 from Dorking, he has had many solo exhibitions and mixed shows in local and national venues such as the RA Summer Exhibitions, David Messum (London), Medici Gallery, New Grafton Gallery, Penhaven Gallery (St Ives). In 2007 he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists.
Vivienne Orchard is a self-taught artist who was born in Birmingham. She has lived in Cornwall for over 40 years. After 25 years as a social worker, Vivienne now paints in her studio at Krowji. She is also an author.
Former tutor in painting at Falmouth School of Art, Organ's painting, Studio Window with Passing Figure (oil on board) is part of the permanent collection of Cornwall Council.
Maximilian Orkamfat is a St Ives-based painter. He is a regular exhibitor at STISA open shows.
Chelsea Orme-Williams is a painter based in Millbrook, east Cornwall.
Will Osborn, as he was known, was born in St Pancras, London, the eldest son of Edward M and Augusta K Osborn. His father was an Inspector of Factories for HM government.
The artist was an early member of St Ives Arts Club and appears in the Arts Club photograph (The Studio). His address in 1894 was in Manchester, but he lived and worked in St Ives from The Terrace in 1895-6 (possibly longer), and was known to barter art works for food and lodging. In 1896 he married the artist Dorothy WORDEN, who he may have met in St Ives. She had been a member of the St Ives Arts Club since 1893, and had been exhibiting locally and in Falmouth. The couple married in Exeter, and his exhibiting address from approximately 1898 was in Exmouth. Paintings also indicate that aside from London, the artist also spent some working time in Ludlow, Shropshire.
In 1906, after suffering some time with facial neuralgia (an extremely painful condition) thought at the time to stem from dental problems, Will died in Chelsea, perhaps as a result of over-dosing on pain relief medications.
Bob Osborne is from a Romany Gypsy family. An artist, writer and documentary film maker, he lives at Tregerthen, near Zennor.
From 1972 to 1976 he studied Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of 'Zennor - Spirit of Place' and co-producer of the award-winning documentary film of the same name.
Frances Osborne works from Fraddon Pottery in mid-Cornwall. After making hand-thrown, beautifully decorated ware for many years, she became interested in hand building, burnishing and smoke firing individual pieces. Although marine crustaceans, rock formations and fossils texture her work, she is inspired by antiquity, archaeological finds and, in particular, burial treasures.
Her daughter, Rachael OSBORNE, shares her studio.
Rachael Osborne is a silversmith who takes her inspiration from textures and organic forms. Her sketches are transformed into silver and gold, with leaves, buds and insects being her main focus. She has studied under world renowned silversmith Robert Dancik, who introduced her to the art of fold forming, which has become her specialism.
Rachael shares her studio at Fraddon with her mother, the ceramicist, Frances OSBORNE.
Exeter-born artist who painted a number of coastal and fishing scenes that could also be Newlyn-based. He often painted the coast of Wales.
Evangeline Mary Whitcombe was born in Soho, London, the daughter of an architect, Arthur Whitcombe, and she is thought to have been an artist. Eva, as she was known, married artist George William OSTREHAN in the Parish church of Soho, St Mary the Virgin in June 1890. The couple were resident at Vine Cottage, Newlyn, at the time of the 1891 Census. In 1893, they had returned to London where they worked from Abbey Studio in Campden Hill Road, Holland Park Mansions (1894), Wildwood Corner in Hampstead (1895), before moving to Sunbury-on-Thames, where she died in 1933.
She exhibited at the Royal Academy after her husband's early death at age of 35. The nature of her artistic expression is not as yet known.
Born in Andhra Pradesh, India, the artist was an Overseas British subject. He was the 6th child of 7 children born to The Rev Joseph Duncan and Harriet Lucy Ostrehan, posted abroad with the British Army in Madras as a Chaplain in Holy Orders (C of E).
Ostrehan married Eva WHITCOMBE, and they were resident at Vine Cottage, Newlyn in 1891. He exhibited with the west Cornwall artists at Dowdeswell in 1890 (See Hardie 2009). The couple left Newlyn in 1893 for Kensington, London, and in the ten years following he had paintings of six windows hung in the RA. He died, age 36 on 9 October, 1903 of cancer in Sunbury on Thames (GRO) and on his death certificate he is listed as an ecclesiastical artist.
Sally Ould is a ceramicist working from Mudgeon Vean Studio near Helston. Her work includes raku fired stoneware and porcelain.
Harry was born and grew up in Longsight, Manchester and spent much of his early life enjoying visiting the Derbyshire hills and moors. He took up art, with no formal training, in the 1930s, while working in an architect's office in London, after looking at paintings all over the city and meeting many artists mainly from Europe. Throughout the war years he lived in London, then returned to Derbyshire before moving to Cornwall in 1950. In Cornwall he lived mainly in Perranuthnoe and Marazion until the early 1960s, but travelled widely in the UK.
Ousey painted in all media and was very interested in collage. He had seen the Surrealists exhibition in London in 1936 which made a great impression. E.L.T. Messens was to comment on a collage by Harry and Kurt Schwitters was a great influence along with Paul Nash. He had been very excited by European art from the '30s and '40s and this reverberated in his work. He knew Peter LANYON in Cornwall days. He believed the only way to convey atmosphere was through abstraction, but this style was greeted with mixed reaction by the public. He did not like the way things were done at that time, and despised arguing taking place between the different artists and their ideas. He moved over near Marazion and then Helston to remove himself from the unpleasant atmospheres. He understood Lanyon's need to transfer his allegiance to the Newlyn Society of Artists (NSA).
Disillusioned with the Britsh Art scene in 1975 he and his wife Susie (Eleanor Made by formal name) moved to France and lived there until his death a decade later. Susie returned to the UK and it was not until her death in 1997 that his collection
came to light.
A large Collection of his work is owned and exhibited by the Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall (25 paintings), who rate his work amongst the finest in abstract paintings emanating from the St Ives school (B Stewart). A large oil on canvas is part of the RCM Collection.
His early work was destroyed during WWII, and any subsequent exhibition featured the abstract watercolours, oils and collages he produced in the 1950s and 1960s.
Tom Cross in his introduction piece to Ovenden in Catching the Wave, states that Graham is a bibliophile, a collector and a scholar, but first he is a painter. He works in oil, working to a high finish and with great precision.' One could not argue with any of that, and Cross's description of the formation of 'The Brotherhood of Ruralists' in 1974 is also descriptively precise and cannot be bettered.
Ovenden came to Cornwall in 1973 with his wife Annie, and settled at a farmhouse near Bodmin, which they re-designed, extended and crafted, almost all by hand, into a Gothic 'museum-like' home complete with a beautifully designed and lighted gallery. The couple were generous with their time and home and invited visitors in to view the latest work of not only their own, but their like-minded friends.
In recent years the artist has been charged with producing pornographic images of children, both in the UK and USA courts, and in the wake of abuse scandals raised after the death of the entertainer Jimmy Savile (2011), also with paedophilia (convicted June 2013 by Truro Crown Court). The Tate Gallery has removed his paintings. A fuller explanation of charges and outcomes can be found on Wikipedia and other websites, mainly by newspapers covering the court case.
His (now estranged) wife, Annie OVENDEN, is also an artist.
Annie was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. A student at High Wycombe School of Art, she subsequently worked for several years as a graphic designer. After moving to Cornwall the demands of family life - as so often for many women who are also artistically talented - took precedence over her professional career. From the 1990s she was able to return to her painting, and shared her expertise by becoming a teacher of painting and drawing in Cornwall Adult Education service.
Since its formation, Annie Ovenden has been part of the group called 'The Ruralists'. She works in both oils and watercolour, and has over the years accomplished much illustration for books and journals.