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, Phil Whiting 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.
A ceramics graduate of the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, Richard Phethean has forty years' experience in teaching pottery. He is a Fellow of, and recently retired as Chair of the Craft Potters Association. He is also a member of the Cornwall Crafts Association and the Penwith Society of Artists.
In 2014 Richard moved to west Cornwall and into Tresabenn studio near Penzance, from where he runs pottery courses. He makes thrown, altered and assembled vessels in coarse textured red and black earthenware clays with brushed slips and resist techniques.
He is a highly respected professional potter whose work is exhibited and collected widely in the UK and in Europe.
St Ives-based artist (originally an ornithologist) who took up wood-carving when Dutch elm disease destroyed the trees in his garden: 'The most important thing is to capture the life of a living creature in a piece of wood. Metal is a dead material and hasn't got the essence of the animal you're dealing with - wood expresses this best. If you are looking at something which is living and taken millions of years to evolve its form, it seems an effrontery to abstract from that and turn it into something else.'
Catherine Phillpotts was born at St Gluvias, Cornwall, daughter of Rev. William John Phillpotts, archdeacon of Cornwall, and his wife Louisa (nee Buller). Records indicate that the family were living at St Gluvias Vicarage in 1871, the year of Louisa's death.
From 1884 to 1918 she is recorded as a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club, exhibiting watercolours.
After her father's death in Falmouth in 1888, Catherine moved to Bovey Tracey in Devon, where she was living in 1891 with two siblings. She died in Bedford in 1919, aged 72.
Avis Louisa Philp (nee Nickels) is listed in the 1891 Census as the 37 year old Artist/portrait painter wife of Richard Philp, born in Fowey and living at 14 Alverton Terrace, Penzance. They were married in the Kensington district of London in 1889.
Another (or the same?) Miss Avis Philp is listed in The Year's Art for some years (1894 ff) as living in London.
A correspondent in 2020 has advised us that he is in possession of a painting (oil on board) by Avis Philp dated 1890, which he believes came from a sale of Heligan House contents.
The daughter of Henry & Elizabeth Philp, born in Falmouth. She is recorded as living at Penwerris Row, Budock in 1841 with her widowed mother and three brothers.
Listed in the 1851 Census for Falmouth as a 19 year old unmarried Teacher Of Drawing, born in Falmouth and living at 14 Erisey Terrace with her mother, Elizabeth, and brother, Phil Whiting, an artist painter.
By 1861 she was still living with her mother and brother J G PHILP but at Harriet Place, Budock. She was at that time listed as an artist in watercolours. In 1871 she was still resident with her brother,but now also his family, and her mother at Woodlane Crescent, Falmouth. She is still listed as an artist in watercolour.
She does not appear to have exhibited and after 1871 there does not appear to be any further record of her, neither of marriage nor death.
A recent correspondent (2015) records a watercolour painting of the River Dolgelly by this artist, and the address on the back is 3 Woodlane Crescent, Falmouth with a price of £10.10s.
Possibly born in 1815 according to an entry in the Dissenting Deputies Register birth details at Dr Williams' Library, London. His parents were Henry and Elizabeth Philp of Falmouth where he lived throughout his life.
The first notice of this artist from Falmouth, is as winner of the First Prize in the 2nd Class of oil paintings at the RCPS Show in Falmouth during its first Annual Exhibition (1834), for Marine View from Pendennis.
At age 18, he placed second in the professional artists section with View of Falmouth. In 1835, he equalled the former success with another oil painting, View of St Michael's Mount (Bronze Medal). He became not only a notable prize winner, but later one of the main exhibition judges for the annual shows.
He was also known as a stationer, printer and publisher. In 1836 the Philp family moved to Bristol, then in 1846 to London, where James had nine works selected for the Royal Academy.
By the time of the 1841 census his father had died and he is listed as an artist living with his mother and siblings at Penwerris Row, Budock. By 1851 he is listed as an artist painter at 14 Erisey Terrace, Falmouth, along with his mother and sister, Mary, who is listed as a 19-year-old teacher of drawing. In 1861 he is recorded as still living with his mother and sister, but at Harriet Place, Budock.
He married Mary Jane Powell at Clifton in 1861, which was the year he made a tour of Wales. He was also in Wales in 1863. 1881 found him living at Woodlane Crescent, Falmouth with his wife, a son George, and also his mother-in-law and a niece. He became an Associate of NWS in 1856 and a full member in 1863, exhibiting a total of 347 works at Society exhibitions. Much of his work in watercolour depicts coastal scenes around Cornwall with shipping, fishing folk and the coastline.
Born in Falmouth, James Buckingham Philp was the son of James George PHILP. In 1846 the family were living in London, where young Philp trained as a lithographer. He was also a painter, architectural draughtsman and amateur actor and emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1853. He lived there until 1865, when he suddenly disappeared, reportedly with a great sum of money he had stolen.
A great, great grandson writes:
'Last year (2011) the Water Society of Ireland published their history in a book called The Silent Companion. One of the founders of the Society was Henrietta Phipps of Oaklands Clonmel, the home of my Great Great Grandfather.
Her nephew Pownoll William Phipps apparently spent time in Truro 1853-1854 and took lessons from landscape and coastal painter James George PHILP RI who lived at Falmouth. It is thought he passed on what he learned to his Aunt. (I think he was training for the Priesthood and was studying under the guidance of the Bishop of Truro).'
Pownoll is also the author in 1877 of the Family Book of Prayers.
Whether or not he pursued his art studies or exhibited his work in any fashion (illustration, etc.) is not known. It may be unlikely, however, because he became the Vicar of Chalfont St Giles. In the 1890s he published for private circulation with the Bentley Brothers Publishers, a book of family history being the life of his father, Colonel Pownoll Phipps.
Bill Picard wanted to be a painter, but Bernard LEACH who was a great friend and influence, encouraged him to take up ceramics instead. He married Biddy Perry when her former marriage broke up, and thereby became stepfather to her three children, Jane (Nig), Peter PERRY and Greta PERRY. From the front room of their home in Mousehole, they set up a small craft shop, behind which they had their pottery, known thereafter as the Mousehole Pottery.
Bill also took up teaching pottery at the Penzance School of Art.
One of the 'Woodcutters' who came first to the Lamorna Valley, Biddy and her husband Bill PICARD were at the centre of the artistic circles of Mousehole and Newlyn for many years. In 1955 the couple established The Mousehole Pottery and Gift Shop, through which they sold their earthenware pots until 1961, after which time they let the shop to a number of other craft workers. In 1978, Biddy's daughter Greta re-started the pottery from a different location in Mousehole and ran it there for more than a decade.
Born in 1922 in Derbyshire, Biddy attended Chesterfield School of Art before training at the Slade. After a brief period teaching art in Bristol, she moved to Wales and then in 1974, to Cornwall. Both of her children, Peter PERRY and Greta PERRY, have been established artists in Cornwall and abroad since that time, and exhibit their work locally and abroad.
Biddy was a longstanding member of the Newlyn Society of Artists, and taught painting and ceramics at Penzance School of Art. After the death of Bill, she continued to exhibit her exuberant and colourful paintings in small galleries and general exhibitions in the local area, and her work remains highly sought after.
Biddy Picard died in 2019.
Nancy Pickard was born in Brazil but grew up in the Channel Islands. Her father, Bryan Pickard, is a watercolour artist. Nancy was a student at the Central School of Art in London and Caridd Art College, graduating in ceramics in 1986. In 2002 she moved to west Cornwall, settling in St Just. She produces mixed media paintings in an eccentric, naive style as well as enamelled silver jewellery, ceramic and mixed media sculptures. Subsequently she moved to Devon.
Pierre-Hunt was an original founding member of the Liskeard Art Club in 1944. Prior to the outbreak of World War II he had practised as an architect in Bloomsbury Square. He and his wife Edith Helen PARKIN, who also painted, spent a number of years in Polperro, participating in the exhibitions of the East Cornwall Society of Artists and the Plymouth Arts Club. The couple played an important role in Polperro society, with William being Chairman of the Parish Councill and a member of the Harbour Trustees for many years.
Diane Pierson was born in Essex. After studying fashion design and art history she taught painting and drawing to adults. Since moving to Fowey her painting has been inspired by the wonderful scenery of south east Cornwall. Diane has exhibited at Toe in the Water Gallery in Fowey.