Martin Perman is an artist and exhibitions manager for the Truro Art Society.
Hugh Perry is a ceramicist based in south east Cornwall. His work is hand thrown using a black crank stoneware body with porcelain slips added whilst the clay is still green. During each stage brush strokes of oxide washes combined with wax resist are applied to the slip decoration. This process is further enabled by applying multiple porcelain glazes in a similar way. The firing causes the chemical reactions forming natural seams and textures; each vessel is unique.
With an address at Prospect House, Seaton, Devon, Perry exhibited and sold three paintings at NAG in summer 1906 including Seaton Bay, Cottage in (?D) Town, and another (indecipherable).
In the 33rd NAG show (1907) he exhibited and sold Landslip and Icanthus.
Perry is a painter mainly of landscapes and themes taken from the natural world. His feeling for nature coincides with occupation in forestry and land husbandry. His muted and atmospheric paintings reflect much about early and late light in the course of many weathers. His studio is at Trevelloe, Lamorna.
Perry came from northern roots, his father being a scientist. At the end of WWII, as a Conscientious Objector he and a number of other COs who wanted a different way of life had settled in the woodlands around Exmoor and Dartmoor. A small group broke away and decided to make camp in West Cornwall at Lamorna in the woods there, and thereby the so-called 'Woodcutters' came into being. Environmentally they lived close to the earth, cut wood and took other odd-jobs to make a basic living, and some made art as well.
Perry's first wife was the artist we now know as Biddy PICARD, and with her, setting up home first in the Lamorna Valley and then as children were born, in nearby Mousehole. Two daughters and a son, Jane (Nig), Greta PERRY and Peter PERRY were all born in Cornwall, Peter in the George LAMBOURN studio home which now belongs to Ken HOWARD. The front room of their small home became a shop (which it remains today with owners having changed in due course), and behind that shop Biddy set up the first Mousehole Pottery.
Perry left Cornwall with his second wife, Nina from St Ives, and set up home in North Wales, where he again deliberately chose an alternative way of life (no electricity, telephone, indoor toilet), entering the forestry business in a large scale way, buying woodlands, planting, felling, selling.
His woodcarving probably did not continue, according to his son, though he had a huge workshop with wood waiting for his handwork. Nonetheless, the few pieces left in the family attest to his considerable abilities creatively. Not being a sensible manager, and something of a 'gambler' in the trade, Perry had to declare bankruptcy at some point and lost everything. He died in Aberystwith.
Greta grew up in Cornwall, the daughter of a woodcarver, R G PERRY and his wife Biddy, a painter. Her stepfather, Bill PICARD, taught pottery in the Penzance School of Art where she subsequently studied. Being surrounded by pots and potters from an early age, it was not until she had travelled widely and settled back in Cornwall that she took up ceramics herself, and began to learn the realities of running a workshop amongst the several local potteries.
She re-opened the Mousehole Pottery, first established by her parents in 1955, in 1977, and felt strongly that her work should give much pleasure as well as being useful. She believed that there is a direct flow from the earth to the spirit in the making of pots, and that for her the rhythm of working on the wheel is a part of this process of creation. She worked solely in stoneware. Her pottery was in operation until 1989. Greta now lives in Oregon, USA.
Liz Perry studied Fine Art at Sunderland University. This was followed by a degree in Art & Design at Birmingham City University. Currently she lives in Cornwall. She is a regular exhibitor at STISA open shows.
Maud Perrycoste (nee Hastings) was the wife of Frank Perrycoste, known as the 'Polperro Fingerprint Man' on account of his studies into eugenics and heredity. Her husband was born in Tottenham and they were married in 1898. They decided to make their home in the fishing village of Polperro, whose quaint and picturesque streets offered inspiration to the aspiring artist. Maud was known to be active there in 1901, when she used her Polperro address for sending-in to exhibitions. A number of her Polperro paintings were shown at RCPS in Falmouth around the turn of the century. In 1903 she started a family and thereafter seems to have given up painting seriously.
Martyn Perryman was born in Bath. After leaving school he worked as an assistant to the sculptor John Rivera (president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors). From there he moved into retail display.
In 2007 he graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art & Design. He has exhibited successfully with the Royal Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Galleries in London. His work is represented by leading galleries across the UK and is held in collections in the UK, Germany, France, California and Australia.
Perryman lives near St Ives.
After successfully exhibiting at the New Gallery in Portscatho, the Italian-born Ernesto Pescini settled in Mawnan Smith in 2018, after a number of years in Wales.
Entirely self-taught, he works mainly in acrylics on marine plyboard.
His first exhibition was held in 1982 in Milan's Centro Cultura e Costume. In subsequent years his work has been shown widely throughout Europe.
An American born in San Francisco, who was a painter of nocturnal and tonalist landscapes.
In 1910-11 he visited England and St Ives with his second wife, Mabel Prudhomme Easley, during which time he also had a London exhibition. The artist died in California.
Peter Peterson obtained a diploma in painting from Hornsey College of Art in 1967. He began his teaching career in the Visual Research Department of Chesterfield College of Art. He also held the post of senior lecturer in the Fine Arts Department of Epsom College of Art.
His work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition since 1968, and he was elected to the Royal Society of British Artists in 1978, later becoming Vice-President.
In 1986 Peterson was a visiting lecturer at Falmouth College of Art. In 1989 he started the Small Paintings Group. The same year he became a founding member and, later, vice-chairman of the Society of Landscape Painters.
In 1992 and 1995 he held solo exhibitions at the Mall Galleries. He has won a number of prestigious art awards over the years, including the De Laszlo Medal in 1994 and the Guilders Workshop Prize at the Discerning Eye exhibition in 1997. His work has been shown abroad in the USA, Bermuda and Hong Kong.
Peterson is a painter who works mainly in oils, with an emphasis on colour and light.
She exhibits with the Lamorna Valley Group and more information is available at http://www.lamornaartsfestival.co.uk/members.php
John Petherick was born and died in Camborne. He grew up in south Wales near the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, where he became manager. He was not afraid to depict scenes which showed the impact of the Industrial Revolution.
His paintings are held in galleries in Wales.
Ian Pethers has a workshop in Gunnislake, where he creates miniature watercolours, 3D mixed art and other constructions. His house, originally built as a roadside cafe, is next to the train station - a happy coincidence, as he has his own working model railway. Pethers loves to celebrate the 'ordinary' by taking everyday objects such as a drainpipe or a doorknob, and turning them into artworks.
The daughter of the figure and landscape painter John Ley PETHYBRIDGE, she studied at the Launceston School of Art, and exhibited watercolours and black and white prints. On at least six occasions she exhibited at the RA, and also exhibited with STISA of which she maintained membership for some six years.
In 1933 she married, becoming Mrs E Bulmer, and moved to Hereford.
John Ley Pethybridge was born in Launceston in 1865 and died in Stratton, Cornwall in 1905. He was a gifted artist and illustrator, who exhibited at the RA, RBA and Liverpool. He had a solo exhibition at the Eland Gallery in Exeter in 1903. His art student days were spent initially in London, and subsequently under the tutelage of the animal painter John Emms in Lyndhurst, Hampshire and finally, with the Newlyn School of Painters in Cornwall.
He first exhibited in Lyndhurst in 1885, but returned to live in Launceston, where he was very active in a range of spheres, being also a talented musician, vocalist, actor, humourist, raconteur of Cornish stories and sportsman. In 1902 he married and moved to Stratton, near Bude, but died prematurely from cancer in 1905. His daughter Grace PETHYBRIDGE also became an artist.
Olivia Pethybridge lives, works and exhibits in both London and Cornwall. Her work reflects her fascination with clouds and the luminous sunlight over the Cornish landscape.
The brother of the watercolour landscape painter Elizabeth PETRIE, Norman GARSTIN was widely travelled. He was also an active exhibitor, showing in London at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, Fine Art Society, Dowdeswell Galleries, Grosvenor Gallery, New Gallery, New English Art Club and Society of British Artists, a society that appointed James Abbot McNeil WHISTLER its President in 1886.
Petrie was among those invited to attend a dinner organised by William Christian SYMONDS to congratulate Whistler on being made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Munich, a dinner held at the Criterion in Piccadilly on 1 May 1889. [Whistler Studies, Glasgow]
Notice of his visit to St Ives is in 1914.
Pett works from Cyhcandra, Crows-an-Wra, St Buryan near Penzance and creates contemporary geometric two and three dimensional glass artworks. Each piece is made in the traditional way with stained glass and lead came, but utilising 21st century technology.
The artist's work has been exhibited at the Rainyday Gallery in Penzance. She is the driving force behind Penwith Printmakers.
For Uncle Billy copper-beating, drawing and painting were hobbies, whereas his main occupations were woodwork-to a high level (models of boats to be found in South Kensington Museum and the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro) - alongside his source of income as a telegraph clerk.
Humphry Davy School, Penzance, also has examples of his monumental wood-carving.
Frank Phelan was born in Dublin. After studying at the Royal Architectural Institute of Ireland, he emigrated to Canada in 1953, where he undertook various jobs while taking art classes. Subsequently he moved to London where he lived with the Irish sculptor Frank Morris, and designed sets for the theatre. His theatre contacts led to an introduction to Nancy WYNNE JONES, who invited him to be an artist-in-residence in Trevaylor, the Georgian house at Gulval, near Penzance, which she had converted to a kind of artists' colony. It was here that Phelan befriended the painter Tony O'MALLEY, who introduced him to many of the key figures in the early St Ives circle, including Roger HILTON, Bryan WYNTER and Patrick HERON.
For a decade Phelan divided his time between Cornwall and a rented studio off the Fulham Road, developing a higly abstracted compositional style. He forged a career which extended from Cornwall to Edinburgh, before returning to live in London.
He has had many solo and group exhibitions and his paintings and mixed media works are held in private collections in England, Ireland, France and the USA.
Anne Phelps was a painter working and living in west Cornwall. Earlier she had a career as an arts and crafts specialist teacher. Her work was influenced by the rhythms and patterns in nature. For 20 years she was a member of the St Ives Society of Artists, serving as a committee member in her last year. Her work is in private collections around the world.
Jan Phethean is a Helston-based artist whose work draws on her career as an award winning architecural designer, and her passion for wildlife and landscape, in particular ancient field systems.