The Paper Chase promised to be a delightful journal of everyday interviews, news and reprints of work by the artists, pupils and writers of the Newlyn Colony. The journals were planned as a series, by the publisher Elizabeth FORBES, to be edited by her friend Fryniwid Tennyson JESSE self-styled as 'The March Hare'. Unfortunately the exercise had to be abandoned after two issues only due to the failing health of Elizabeth Forbes climaxing in her death in 1912.
The two volumes were full of poems, essays, and reproductions, delivered in a light-hearted jocular vein, most of which was produced through the editorial work of the Editor.
Stass Paraskos was born in Cyprus but spent much of his life in the UK. At Leeds College of Art he met the artists Terry FROST and Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM, who persuaded him to move to Cornwall, which he did in 1959. In St Ives he shared a studio with Barns-Graham until he returned to Leeds in 1962.
In 1966 Paraskos was involved in a court case relating to the display of 'lewd and obscene' paintings at the Leeds Institute Gallery. He lost the case despite the support of many prominent individuals. The fame which resulted led to invitations to teach, and exhibitions at major venues such as the ICA in London. In 1969 he founded a summer school for British art students in Famagusta, which evolved into the Cyprus College of Art, with Stass as its principal. At the same time he continued to teach in the UK, becoming a senior lecturer at Canterbury College of Art in 1970. He and his wife retired to settle in Cyprus in 1989, from where he continued to exhibit and produce poetry, articles and books on history and politics.
His work has been exhibited world-wide and is represented in numerous collections in the UK including Tate Britain. In 2008 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bolton for his services to art and art education.
Robin Paris obtained a foundation degree in Art and Design from Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1980. This was followed in 1983 by a Diploma in Integrated Design at Ealing College of Higher Education. In 2006 she gained a PGCE at Plymouth University.
She has lived in Cornwall since 1992, working from her Bodmin moor studio and exhibiting not only locally, but across the UK and abroad. She runs resist-dyeing and natural dyeing courses and workshops for adults, schools and community groups, as well as historical and arts organisations.
She has undertaken a number of research projects related to ecology, the environment and, more specifically, analysing patterns built into the Bodmin moor landscape over the centuries. Her artwork has been reproduced in several books, magazines and exhibition catalogues.
He was born in Preston, Lancashire and was considered to be the star pupil at Julius OLSSON and Algernon Mayow TALMAGE's school (1902-04), then trained in Paris at Colarossi's under Delacluse before returning to St Ives in 1906. He sold Street St Ives at NAG in the summer of 1910.
In 1912 and 1913 Park used a Polperro exhibiting address. He may not have been a full-time resident, over-wintering either in Plymouth or Brixton, but he took a studio in the Coombes, Polperro, from July to September each year, and ran painting classes in the village. The vast majority of his output during those years, and in 1914, were Polperro scenes.
With his distinctive rendering of colour and light, he was best known for his brilliantly coloured impressionistic depictions of boats in St Ives harbour. he was also a painter of still life. In WWI he served in East Surrey Regiment, and married his wife Peggy in 1919. The couple lived in St Ives by 1921, moving to 3 Bowling Green in 1923. In the Show Day of 1924, he exhibited with the paintings he was sending away to the RA. They included the largest, Drying Sails, another of St Ives with the herring fishing in full swing, Herring Time St Ives, and the third, Souvenir from France, depicting the entrance to the harbour of La Rochelle.
Nowadays, he is probably the most highly regarded of the St Ives resident members of STISA at that time. He moved to London 1933, where his studio in Maida Vale was close to that of Dorothea SHARP and Marcella SMITH. But he returned to St Ives in 1940, where he felt more at home. Sadly, he died almost penniless in Preston, his wife having predeceased him (1957, Torquay). Sven BERLIN said, "He painted like an angel - simply cathedrals of light." WORMLEIGHTON celebrated his life with his biography, Morning Tide: John Anthony Park and the Painters of Light.
NAG exhibitor in 1910 of Street, St Ives, with a note in salesbook indicating that a postcard would be made from it.
Having exhibited in various galleries from 1904, the artist moved to Sennen, Cornwall in 1924, her previous addresses having been in Bourne End and Maidenhead. She continued to exhibit until at least 1932.
This may or may not be the same person listed by Wood in Hidden Talents as Miss N M Parker (exh 1925-1930) who painted watercolours of landscapes, and lived in Bristol. Parker exhibited five works at the RWA 1925-1930, and if she is the same person her titles included Dunster (1925), Castle Coombe (1927) and Wells Cathedral (1930). The information about her exhibitions (listed below) relates to the artist who lived at Sennen.
Stuart Parker grew up in the north of England and trained at Salford College of Art. He lives in Kingsand on the Rame peninsula. He is well known for his seascapes, and illustrations of Cornish flora and fauna.
Along with her husband, architect and fellow painter William Joseph PIERRE-HUNT, Edith contributed greatly to Polperro society, exhibiting at the exhibitions of the East Cornwall Society of Artists and the Plymouth Arts Club. They were married in 1936 and subsequently moved to Polperro.
Edith was the leading figure initially in the Polperro Art Group, which was formed in the winter of 1963-4. For the rest of the decade, exhibitions were held annually in the summer in 'The Foresters' Hall'.
Georgia Parkin Jones lives in north Cornwall. She obtained a BA (Hons) in Photography from Plymouth University.
Noticed as exhibiting first at the RA in 1915, from an address in Walthamstow, Essex, the artist entered two paintings, Low Tide, Mousehole and Back of Duck Street, Mousehole at NAG in 1937.
The artist's work is included in the art collection of University College Falmouth (UCF).
The son of an Army Commander, he was born at Blackheath, London. Principally a marine painter he worked in watercolours and oils. He was educated privately before studying art at Blackheath and Rochester.
He first came to Cornwall and exhibited with RCPS in 1896, living at St Ives, exhibiting again the following year at Falmouth. He studied further under Louis GRIER at St Ives. In 1905 he advertised that he would hold a watercolour and oil painting class during July, August and September at the East Kent School of Landscape Painting, Sandwich.
Later (c1907) he returned to live in St Ives, his first show being in 1908. His home was at Richboro', Barnoon, St Ives and he worked from the St Eia Studio until after WWI. In later years he moved to the Lizard, opting for more tranquil scenes, being particularly renowned for his ability to depict sand.
Catherine Parmenter works from her studio at home in Roserrow, north Cornwall, close to Polzeath beach.
David Tovey writes (2012): Parr was a prolific artist, who painted watercolours of picturesque corners of fishing villages in Cornwall and Devon, but, he is not listed in any of the standard dictionaries and very little was known about him. Auctioneers/dealers have given widely divergent dates for his career, with many believing, due to the type of subject that he depicted, that he started to flourish as a painter as early as 1880, some seven years before his true birth date! The Exeter art historian, April Marjoram, has solved the mystery.
Parr was born on 13th November 1887 in Exeter. His father, Frederick William Parr, was a tailor, also Exeter-born, whilst his mother Rosa (née Chalk) had been born in Martock, Somerset. At the time of the 1871 Census, a Mary Cornish was staying with the family at their home, 24 Blackall Road, St David’s, Exeter, and so the artist’s forename ‘Cornish’ was probably a family name. By the 1891 Census, three year old Frederick had two younger siblings, Lillie aged 2 and Stephen aged 8 months. In 1903, both Frederick, then living at 32 Blackall Road, and his brother, Stephen, still living with their parents at 24, Blackall Road, won prizes in a local drawing competition. Indeed, it was Stephen who first embarked on an artistic career, as, in the 1911 Census, he is recorded as a lithographer. Frederick, then aged 23, was working as a railway clerk, having started as an apprentice at the goods department in Fore Street, Exeter in 1902. He married Hyacinth May, in 1910, and had a young daughter, Inez Beatrice (m.1934, d.1967). He resigned from the railway service on 24th November 1914, presumably to serve in the War, although his service record is unknown.
During his time as a railway employee Frederick may have been able to make use of the railway network to do some sketching in Cornwall. His painting career seems to have started after WWI and there are references to him exhibiting paintings at Eland’s Gallery, Exeter (a stationer’s shop that held art exhibitions twice a year) in 1922 and 1924. Although he rarely dated his work, one painting is dated 1929, and presumably he worked on into the 1930s. One note refers to him sharing an Exeter attic studio with Herbert William Hicks (1880-1944) for a time. Parr’s St Ives subjects tend to suggest that he was working there in the 1920s. Wharf Road has been built and the dress of the fishermen looks post-War. Invariably, he included in his subjects locals at work, placing them in the vicinity of quaint old buildings, whilst in the background can be seen glimpses of activity in the harbour. In St Ives, therefore, favourite scenes were Westcott’s Quay, Bethesda Hill, Fish Street, and Pudding Bag Lane. He also painted in Norway Square and The Digey. He also produced a number of paintings of Polperro. His interest in old buildings and the days of sail, rather than the newly motorised fishing boats, has probably led to his work being dated earlier than it was. Though verging towards the ‘chocolate box’ subject, Parr nearly always made his views contain something of social historical interest and are far better executed than similar subjects by T H Victor/W. Sands, Garman Morris, Arthur White, and others. Presumably, because he was contracted to sell all his work under the name of Parr through a particular outlet, he occasionally used a pseudonym, F.BENI.
Elizabeth Parr was born in Horsham, West Sussex and studied at Horsham School of Art. She has spent most of her life in the West Country, including 30 years in Coverack on the Lizard peninsula. She now lives in a village near Tavistock. She has exhibited at the Veryan Galleries on the Roseland peninsula.
Oliver Parrish's art is based on a fascination for geometrical patterns and tessellations. He divides his time between Cornwall and west Sussex.
The artist was recognised for her specialisation in the painting of gardens, and was known to have painted extensively at Trebah in West Cornwall.
She studied at the RA Schools, and her addresses given for sending-in work were Peckham, London (1889), Hampstead, London (1901) and Watford, Herts (1907).
A native of Bristol and son of Dr John Parsons, GP, he visited Cornwall on working holidays to see his brother, the vicar of Crantock, near Newquay. In 1908 the artist became a founder-member of the Bristol Savages.
A painting by Parsons of Polperro was hung at the Bristol Fine Art Gallery in 1890.
The landscape and flower painter Alfred Parsons is not known in any specific way to link to Cornwall; one of his paintings (The Pear Orchard) is in the possession of Falmouth Art Gallery, through which his name comes into our data-base. He was a member of a number of societies including the RWS, the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours, the Royal Miniature Society (honorary), the RI, the NEAC, the Gallery Club as well as being elected an associate of the RA (1897) and a full member in 1911. Through any and all of these groups he would have been part of circles that included the main artists of St Ives and Newlyn art colonies.
Born in Somerset, he exhibited widely from 1871 at all the main venues in London and elsewhere, and is included in the list of those covered in the University of Glasgow's J W Whistler's Correspondence Project. In the late 1890s he joined the Society of Illustrators, and was responsible for the illustrations for the publication by the famed Cornishman Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, entitled The Warwickshire Avon.
More research and/or further information may reveal when/if he is more tightly connected with the Cornish artistic scene of his times.
One of two assistants who had helped Henry Malcolm GEOFFROI as student-teachers, Pascoe was an assistant teacher at the Penzance School of Art when Phil Whiting was Headmaster (1901-1907).
Born on 31 July, 1848, Penzance, Lavin was his mother's maiden name. In 1879 his address was in Newlyn, and he began to send paintings in to the RCPS: Newlyn - fresh breeze (1879), Trawlers, Gwavas Lake (1884) and Penzance (1888).
At NAG in 1897 he exhibited and sold Mackerel Season, Mts Bay. Within the sales records, Pascoe's name is often found as a purchaser of works from the earliest exhibitions. On 28 September, 1908 the artist died, age 60, at Mylor near Falmouth (GRO).
Terry Pascoe was born in Redruth and was educated at the grammar school there. He became a student at Falmouth Art School and then the Central School of Art in London.