The father of the artist Newton PENPRASE. His birth is registered in the first quarter of 1859 in the Penzance Registration District (which includes Madron Parish) as Richard Henry Penrose PENPRAZE.
A painting by this artist, entitled Murdoch House, Cross Street (1897) is in the collection held by Redruth Town Museum.
He married Susan Ann DUNSTAN in 1883 in the Redruth Registration District and is recorded in the 1891 Census for Redruth as a 32 year old, 'Employed Decorative Painter', married with 3 children, born in Madron Parish and living at 7 Blights Row. Mr R H Penprase is mentioned in the 1906 Art Union Exhibition as receiving a cash prize (Cornishman) for an unidentified piece of work. This was also at a time when his son Newton Penprase was studying art at the Redruth School of Art and giving some assistance to his father.
The main occupation of RHPP was in church decoration and restoration.
Dave Pentin is a design graduate of Falmouth School of Art. For twenty years he conducted art courses in the French Alps. He has returned to live in Cornwall, where he shares his fascination for working in gum arabic and acrylic inks by running workshops in this layering technique.
R T Pentreath was born in Mousehole, near Penzance, in August 1806, the son of Richard Pentreath, a schoolmaster, and Julia (nee Badcock).
He won the Silver Medal (lst prize) in the 1835 EXHIBITION of the newly 'crowned' Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (RCPS) of Falmouth. At that stage he was a servant at Clowance, one of the family seats of the St Aubyns (of St Michael's Mount), and later an attendant on Sir R Vyvyan of Trelowarren with whom he travelled on the continent, recording the places visited.
His painting at the RCPS was Newlyn, The Pilchard Factory, and was fulsomely described as a very beautiful picture attracting general admiration, and affording an admirable specimen of native talent. 'The houses and the pier of Newlyn, with the brig lying beside it, all partook of that harmonious colouring, which constituted one principal excellence of this picture.' In 1846 he took the Bronze Medal (2nd prize) for his painting of Pilchard Tucking in oils. He became a popular portrait and landscape painter, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy from 1844 to 1861. This resulted in him receiving a number of portrait commissions in the capital.
According to Holmes many of his works are unsigned and attributable only by the engravings produced. Some of his work, due to the subject matter, and being unsigned, have been attributed to Thomas Hart. Many of his works were engraved by Vibert & Tonkin and Besley at Exeter.
Aside from his painting, Pentreath accepted commissions for map-making. He is believed to have been responsible in 1841 for the 'Plan of the Tenement of Bossigran (sic) in the parish of Zennor' then the property of H C Phillips Esq. This very large map, 34 inches x 51 1/2 inches, was gifted to the Hypatia Trust in 2008 and is now lodged permanently with Kresen Kernow.
He married in London in 1831, and in 1841 was living with his wife, Mary Ann and two sons at Clarence Street, Madron, described as a Spirit Merchant. However, ten years later, while still living at the same address, he is then described as an artist. By 1856 he was living at Exmouth in Devon, while in 1861 he and his wife are found as one of three families living at 30 Moore Street, Chelsea, London. Whether this was a short term visit or longer is not known, for he died in Exmouth in January 1869, at the age of 62. Around 90 of his paintings were drawn together for a memorial exhibition in 1884.
A correspondent has been in touch (2024) to tell us of a portrait of Rev. John Foxell in the Morrab Library, Penzance, which has now been attributed to R T Pentreath, on the basis of an article in the Cornwall Advertiser of 30 December 1846.
The Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall was founded on the 8th of February, 1949, following a meeting arranged at the Castle Inn, St Ives. Nineteen artists were the founder members. The new society was formed by many who had resigned from the St Ives Society of Artists and others who sympathised with their dissatisfactions concerning STISA and its policies. The Penwith Society would include both painters and craftsmen, unlike STISA, and would also offer both professional and lay memberships.
The 19 founding members were: Shearer ARMSTRONG, Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM, Sven BERLIN, David COX, Agnes E DREY, Leonard John FULLER. Isobel HEATH. Barbara HEPWORTH, Marion Grace HOCKEN, Peter LANYON, Bernard LEACH, Denis MITCHELL, Guido MORRIS, Marjorie MOSTYN, Dicon NANCE, Robin NANCE, Ben NICHOLSON, Hyman SEGAL and John WELLS.
It was agreed that the Society was to be founded as a memorial tribute to Borlase SMART. Officers were elected, and at a general meeting a longer list of artists and craftsmen was invited to become members. Those invited and those who accepted are listed in the Chronology of the Tate (1985) publication.
By 1950 the cracks had begun to show and some of the founding members resigned, including Segal, Cox, Berlin, Isobel Heath, Lanyon and Morris, due to the suggestion put forward to institute divisions (A, B, C) or groups of artists, divided as to whether or not they were A Traditionalists B Modernists and C Craftsmen. Opposition was most vociferous from Lanyon, and at this point he began to exhibit with the NSA in Newlyn, becoming its chairman in 1961. A number of the Founder Members resigned over this issue. The Penwith Society abolished the A and B group rule in 1957. The Penwith Society still operates today (2013). Kathleen Watkins, appointed Curator/secretary of the Society in 1967 has recently died, and her successor is not yet known.
To: The Penwith Society of Arts.
So sorry to hear of the death of Kathleen Watkins. Having visited and purchased from the gallery over the years, beginning with a drawing by Helen Feiler in 1984, it was always a pleasure to see the familiar face behind the formidable typewriter. I hope she knew she was a bit of a star. Condolences to family and friends. Bob Smith, Eastbourne, East Sussex.
Bruce & Mary Wiltshire sent a message using the contact form at
http://cornwallartists.org/contact.
We just wanted to extend our sincere condolences to Kathy's family and
friends and the Penwith on hearing of Kathy's death. She was an exceptional
person who helped us decide to buy pieces by D Mitchel and W Barnes-Graham
and rewarded us with stories and laughter on every visit to the Penwith.
We last saw her over the August Bank Holiday and we cannot quite believe that
she won't be there when next we visit, she was part of the fabric of St.Ives
for us and surely for so many others. Her loss must be keen for those that
knew and loved her well.
The first Headmaster was Henry Malcolm GEOFFROI. Born in Boulogne in 1825, he came to London in 1840, perhaps to escape the coup attempt begun in his birthplace by the future Napoleon III. Whatever the reason, he trained as an art master at the Department of Art, South Kensington, and was dispatched to Penzance, finding lodgings at 3 Parade Passage. On September 13, 1853, he held the first meeting of the new school in two rooms above the Princes Street Hall, now believed to be today’s Masonic Lodge. At this meeting he detailed to those who attended the purpose of the school and the art that would be taught there.
Interest in the school was strong and crossed the social classes. Everyone from artisans to young ladies wanted to learn how to draw. By the end of the year Mr Geoffroi was organizing a drawing class at Hayle, and then a few years later he established another in St Just. In Penzance there were so many who wished to join his classes that by the year's end he had moved the school from its original two rooms to Old Regent House (adjoining the National school) in Voundervour Lane.
Almost from the school’s outset students were encouraged to take the exams offered by the Art Department at South Kensington. One notable success was William COLENSO who won a coveted Victoria Bronze Medal for his drawings of plants in 1864, the highest possible national honour. Mr Geoffroi also took his pupil’s work to the annual Royal Polytechnic Exhibition at Falmouth where much success was achieved over the years. And then there were the popular annual exhibitions and prize giving ceremonies at the school in the autumn, shared with the science school when art and science departments were merged by central government.
...by 1880 enough funds had been raised for a new art school to be built at the top of Morrab Road, on land gifted to the town by mayor, MP and banker, Charles Campbell Ross.
Designed in the English Gothic style by well known Cornish architect, Silvanus TREVAIL, the new art school came in on budget at £1220. On either side of the eastern facade are Bath stone inset plaques: one has the thistle, rose and shamrock emblem of the Department of Art and the other the head of John the Baptist, the insignia of the borough. The new art school opened on March 7, 1881 with a short civic parade and an exhibition of pupils' work along with oil and water colour paintings and object of vertu from South Kensington (Victoria and Albert Museum). Such was the local pride in the establishment that on a visit to Penzance while on a lecture tour in 1883, Oscar Wilde was shown the art school by the mayor.
[Abstract from the essay 'The Penzance School of Art: the early years' by Peter Waverly pp21-23 (in) Hardie ed (2009) Artists/Newlyn & West Cornwall 1880-1940 A Dictionary and Sourcebook]
The artist's addresses are listed as Tunbridge Wells, Kent (1891) and Ilfracombe, Devon (1901).
In 1897, the artist sold two paintings at NAG Boulonge and Arrival of Fish, Newlyn. From 1910 the address is The Art Gallery, Ilfracombe, but by 1913, the name is no longer listed in The Year's Art.
Martin Perman is an artist and exhibitions manager for the Truro Art Society.
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.
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.
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.
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.