Anthony Viney was born in London and grew up in Surrey. In 1976 he became a student at West Surrey College of Art & Design in Farnham. Upon graduating, he moved back to London and became a full-time painter. He went on to study graphic design and typography at the John Cass School of Art, Design & Typography. After several years in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, in 2011 Viney and his wife moved to Cornwall. He works from a studio in Wendron, near Helston.
His abstract paintings respond to the opposing forces of nature at play in St Ives Bay. These he experiences as 'both strong and elemental, and at the same time fragile and transitory.' He shows his work regularly at the Penwith Gallery in St Ives, and recently his work has begun to show the influence of Japanese culture, in particular, haiku. Another aspect of his work involves the use of Japanese watercolour or raw pigments bound with gum arabic, on handmade paper.
Sarah Vivian took an Honours Degree in Education in 1975, with art and craft as the main subjects, and followed the craft avenue professionally. She set up a craft business in 1977, and for over ten years she was a handloom weaver and tailoress in a craft centre in Devon. She moved to her own textile gallery in 1988 and diversified her work, producing a wide range of items in painted silk, printed fabrics, batik, embroidery and applique, and especially patchwork. The gallery also sold the work of over 150 craftspeople, and held exhibitions. From 1982 to 1990 Sarah was a Council Member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, and during this time served on various craft committees, and the local Chamber of Commerce. Her gallery in Devon was sold in 1994, and she moved to west Penwith in 1996. Sarah has now been painting full time since 1998.
She says: 'My painting is an expression of my love of the land in west Penwith ...I try to express the magic or earth energy, the essence or resonance of a place, a stone, a tree. I look for the symmetries and similarities of patterns, the inherent fractals of growth and movement.'
Her work has been widely shown in Cornwall, and her most recent paintings have been done to commission (see website for details). Approximately 500 of her original oil paintings are held in private collections.
George Von Haast was born in New Zealand, the second son of Sir Julius and Lady Mary Von Haast. He received his art training in Europe before settling in Dorset, and eventually Cornwall (with some time in Ecuador too) at the start of the twentieth century.
He lived in Tywardreath in mid Cornwall, and was acknowledged as an established artist, and also as a writer of short plays.
Only one painting by him is known to exist. It is signed GVH and is understood to be of a pilgrim, undertaken while he was visiting his mother in Rome, around 1910.
The painting is in the possession of his great-granddaughter, who contacted us hoping to fill in the gaps in his career.
We welcome any further information on this artist.
Artist born in Maastricht, Holland, who studied in Brussels and Paris and received gold medals in exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Dresden and Brussels before working in St Ives in the 1883-1900 period. He moved on to live and work in the US where he settled and died.
NEW BIOGRAPHY NOW AVAILABLE (See details below) Curnow Vosper was born in East Stonehouse, Plymouth, the sixth in a family of eight children of Cornish parents. His father, Samuel was born in Egloskerry and was a brewer who ran a wine and spirits business in East Stonehouse, and his mother Eleanor Halse was born at Gwennap, nr Redruth. Researcher J Goodman notes that 'he claimed to remain always proud of his Cornish roots.'
He attended King's School, Taunton and Plymouth College before reluctantly doing a 3-year architect's apprenticeship in Plymouth. He then moved to Paris for artistic training at Academie Colarossi, and began earning as an illustrator, mainly in London. In 1902 he married Constance James of Merthyr Tydfil, and they had two sons prior to her tragically young death in 1910.
He spent most of his life in London and in the West country, especially Devon, though the greater part of his known output of watercolours, etchings and drawings relates to Brittany and some to Wales.
Johnson & Greutzner list his attendance at Colarossi's Atelier in Paris, and then give the following locations for his sending-in addresses: Morbihan, France (1904); London (1905 & 1930); Okehampton, Devon (1910); Petersfield, Hampshire (1911 & 1926); Bude, Cornwall (1914); Plymouth (1925); and Oxford (1928). He exhibited widely, with at least 186 works shown at the RWS. Though no Cornish works appear to be in public collections, a watercolour entitled On the Coast of North Cornwall, that was shown at the RWS, London in 1935 is known to have been in family ownership ever since its exhibition.
The article about Vosper that was written for the Lever Collection at Liverpool, was authored by Chevallier TAYLER, who was, of course, part of the Newlyn Colony.
Born and raised in Cornwall, Lyndsey Vowell works from her home studio in Falmouth. Although she studied Fine Art and Design, she considers herself self-taught.
In 2022 she completed eleven paintings which were commissioned by the Headland Hotel, Newquay.
Vuillamy came to Newlyn to study painting at the FORBES SCHOOL (c1911-14) at about the time of Elizabeth FORBES' final illness, and his autobiography Calico Pie gives an impression of the life of some of the younger students in those early years. He subsequently became a writer rather than an artist. His noteworthy book Unknown Cornwall (1925) was illustrated in colour and black & white by Charles Walter SIMPSON.
Anna Vyce's art is inspired by the beautiful and varied landscape and wildlife surrounding her home on the Lizard peninsula.
In 1998 she obtained a BA (Hons) in Visual Communication, specialising in Illustration, at the University of Westminster. This was followed in 1992 by a Foundation in Art & Design at Central St Martins.
After leaving university, Anna worked in the voluntary and public sector before moving to Cornwall in 2015, where she practises full-time as an artist.
She contributed to the first STISA show in the Porthmeor Gallery in 1928.
Huhtamaki Wab was born in Tokyo and lives in Cornwall. He graduated from Chelsea College of Art in 2008.
His practice operates within an animistic and non-anthropocentric world where interconnected spirits and humans create a rich ecology of non-hierarchical relations.
His work has been exhibited widely in the UK and Europe.
Waddington was born in Buckinghamshire, and moved with his family to Cornwall in 1971. His foundation work in art was at the Falmouth College of Art (1978-9) and his degree from Dyfed College of Art.
He taught O and A level art in Braintree, Essex and worked on Roman and Iron Age archeological sites before moving back to Cornwall in 1983. Since that time he has exhibited widely and become well know for his paintings and woodcuts often employing a favoured motif, the crow. He also creates sculptures from found objects.
Wade graduated from Falmouth College of Art in 1992, and then went to work as a ward orderly in Sheffield, Yorkshire. From this working experience she is able to 'draw reference from the biological body, cellular structure, chemical properties and the periodic table' (artist's statement: Falmouth 2000).
Current to 2000 she was continuing research into painting and installations, studying for the Integrated MA Degree at Falmouth, alongside teaching part time at Cornwall College (in Art History and Art Practice).
An update on her work would be welcome.
An art student at Falmouth College of Art, Karen Wade went on to work at Exeter Museum, and as a graphic artist. She lives in Cornwall with her husband and two children. Her paintings are inspired by the landscape of Cornwall. While abstract, they possess a sculptural quality and have been praised for their 'poetic sensibility'. She has been represented by several commercial galleries in Cornwall, exhibiting also in London, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. For further information see http://karenwade.com/
Dot Wade is a British abstract painter who was raised in Cornwall and studied art at Falmouth School of Art and Dartington College of Art, and art history at Oxford Polytechnic.
After living in the Rocky Mountains of America, Dot has returned to Cornwall and now lives on Bodmin moor, where her new work is influenced by sculpture, landscape and post-minimalism.
Her work has been widely exhibited and can be found in collections in the UK, the USA and Europe. In Cornwall she is represented by Tregony Gallery.
Wadsworth was born in Great Yarmouth, and undertook his art studies at Ipswich College of Arts (Art and Design) and then at Falmouth College of Art (Fine Art).
Paul's work is well represented on the web, where images of his paintings are available. He has exhibited extensively and travelled widely (especially in the Middle East) to produce an impressive body of work. Paul works from studios in Trewidden Gardens, Penzance and Porthtowan, and paints abstracted images from the landscape and seascape around him.
He teaches the three-day Expressive Painting course at the Newlyn School of Art in Chywoone Hill, Newlyn, and is also a tutor on the School's weekly Life Drawing evening sessions.
Pupil of John Anthony PARK, who at the age of 17 arrived in St Ives to become a full-time resident student in 1924.
Born in Wiesbaden, Germany of a German father, Max Wagner, and an English-born German mother, Julie Lange, Gerard was the youngest of three sons. His father, always in delicate health though a successful and wealthy entrepreneur in metal manufactory, died when Gerard was two. The family was brought back to Britain when he was six, to be near his mother's family and to be educated in England. Altogether a highly cultured family, the Wagners were musical, attended the theatre and filled their home with art. A favoured painter of works hanging at home was the post-impressionist John Anthony Park, and contact was made through family friends, Edgar SKINNER and his wife Edith, who lived in St Ives.
His recent biographer and former pupil, Caroline Chanter, tells 'The language of colour was to become Phil Whiting's chief interest along with a strong desire to decipher it...John Park felt he could teach his pupils most things about art but a feeling for colour was something each had to discover for themselves.' [Quoting from Austen Wormleighton, Morning Tide] His friendship with John and Peggy Park was close, and he became part of their family for the year that he stayed in St Ives, and always thereafter. A high-point of that time was a sketching tour that Gerard took with the Parks in and around St Tropez in Provence in the spring of 1925.
Through the good offices of Bernard LEACH, arrangements were made with William Rothenstein at the Royal College of Art in London, for Gerard to work on his drawing skills from later that same year. From there he was to move on to Dornach, in the Jura mountains of Switzerland. It was the summer of 1926, and Rudolph Steiner who had established his colony there, had died the previous year. Helping to sustain and extend the work of this artist and educationalist, Gerard Wagner set up his own artist's studio in the village and was to remain for many years, working on his own and attending events at the 'Goetheanum' (the name given by Steiner to his establishment). He was to cultivate a great interest in plants and trees, working with natural images fused with colour.
The artist married Elizabeth Koch, his first full time pupil and sculptor in her own right. The two were to travel widely and run their own school of art in Dornach with workshops held internationally.
Chanter's monograph treats of Wagner's life and work with great sensitivity and is to be recommended. She now lives in Dornach and teaches at a painting school near the Goetheanum.
An engineer and lecturer by profession, Terence Wagstaff returned to his roots in Cornwall in 1982. A meeting with Katrina in 1990 (who subsequently became his wife) led to an artistic collaboration. The couple combined their skills, designing and making decorative metal products. This developed into the creation of copper lattice sculptures representing the human torso. Terence and Katrina WAGSTAFF's work centres around the concept of falling leaves, in a unique interpretation of the inherent beauty of nature.
Their sculptures, which are made from recycled copper, have been exhibited at the Harbour Gallery, Portscatho.
Katrina Wagstaff qualified as a furniture designer at the London College of Furniture. In 1990 she moved to Cornwall to study ceramics and to train as a welder. While teaching 'A' Level Design & Technology at St Austell College, she met her future husband, Terence WAGSTAFF. The couple embarked on an artistic collaboration, designing and making decorative metal products. This developed into the creation of copper lattice sculptures representing the human torso. Their work centres around the concept of falling leaves, in a unique interpretation of the inherent beauty of nature.
Their sculptures, which are made from recycled copper, have been exhibited at the Harbour Gallery, Portscatho.
Born in Birmingham on 27 June 1855, he was educated at Sedgley Park College (nr Wolverhampton) till he left at the age of 14: first apprenticed to John Hardman & Co - artworkers primarily in stained glass design. Very soon, he was executing most of the design for the firm and was responsible for windows in the north aisle of St Paul's and designs for St Mary's in Coventry.
Noticing William's great interest in painting, the company released him with regret (in 1880) and supported his further study by sending him to study painting in Antwerp under Verlat. From Antwerp he went on to Paris in 1881 where he remained absorbed until 1884. Returning to London, he shared a studio with his friends William Arthur BREAKSPEARE and Phil Whiting, and after some months of casting around for new painting grounds, with encouragement from Walter LANGLEY, Edwin HARRIS and Phil Whiting, he settled on Newlyn.
He is one of the painters in the 1884 Group Photograph of the 'brotherhood of the palette' at Newlyn. Here he painted Mackerel in the Bay, a large water colour, Ferdinand and Miranda (another watercolour, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest) and an oil portrait, The Burgomaster. He much enjoyed living and working in Newlyn, although the brightness of the sunlight directly affected his eyesight (causing increasing loss of sight in one eye), and having made his mark in the plein-air style, he discovered he preferred figure painting in his studio.
In 1886 he returned permanently to live in Birmingham. His mother, who had devotedly inspired him all his life, died in 1888, and he married in 1890, Bertha Mary Powell; eight children (two daughters who died young, and six sons) were born to them. He was one of the founding members of the Birmingham Art Circle, that group which laughingly claimed (perhaps rightly) that 'Birmingham had discovered Newlyn as a painterly place,' and their fortnightly meetings in each other's studios were a great source of friendship and inspiration. The Turner collation of letters, sketchbooks, coloured plates and essays, presents a life well spent in art. Wainwright died on 1 August, 1931, age 76 in Birmingham (GRO).
A new correspondent (2011) has given us a wonderful insight into the person of Vera S Wainwright, and we include an edited version of this. The whole memoire has been added to our files.
' I was brought up to call her "Aunt Vera", but her association was with my father whom she always addressed as "DHOST". She became in fact my "Godmother", and persuaded my father to educate me in my early years in the Roman Catholic Faith. As I neared graduation in medicine she urged that I become a "Missionary Physician", obliging my reading in missionary works in Africa, and especially the work of Albert Schweitzer.
I keep three oil paintings made by Vera in Cornwall in my collections. One is a small seascape of the Cornish Coast; two are somewhat larger works - one a pastoral scene to which I am much attached. Vera also had a spinning wheel and often engaged in making small handicraft works = ties; scarves, and such. I have still a tie made on her spinning wheel. I am 84 now and it is not likely that I shall publish any autobiographical writing. I have been away from England since 1949, and now seldom travel back to Cornwall or the West country. As I knew her she was perhaps one of the most kind and gentle persons I have known; empathic, supportive, understanding, with a rare spiritual quality.'
Vera Wainwright exhibited two paintings, both of Devon scenes, at the 1937 exhibitions at the Newlyn Art Gallery. In 1969, poems by Vera were published in book form with the title, Poems and Masks.
Philip Wakeham studied at Exeter College of Art, initially working with pewter, but in recent years he has worked exclusively in bronze. He lives and works near Launceston.
Born at Banstead, Surrey in 1877, Annie was the second daughter of Paul Bradshaw Fearon and his wife Edith Jane, nee Duffield, and the older sister of Hilda FEARON, born the following year. [The incorrect date of 1888 is sometimes found for Annie, but this was probably her baptismal date when she and the other children were baptised all together at a later date.* See Misc] Her father was a wine merchant in the West End of London and the family today would be described as well-to-do, the family's four girls and their brother being looked after by five residential servants.
Annie and Hilda were not only close in age but appeared to have had a close relationship throughout their lives. Annie's early education was at the Cheltenham Ladies College, where her artistic leanings were first discovered. She went on to study art at the Chelsea and London Schools of Art. During these years she studied under Sir William Nicholson (1872-1940), Augustus JOHN (1878-1961) and Sir William Orpen (1878-1931). Meantime Hilda attended the Slade, and the two travelled to Dresden for further studies. Annie's interest at that stage was music and the pianoforte, while Hilda pursued art training.
Annie is said to have decided to follow Hilda to St Ives (c1902-4) in order to continue her training as an artist. Hilda is first recorded in St Ives during August 1900, initially living at 'The Cabin' and studying under Algernon and Gertrude Talmage. Annie met her future husband, the Rev Bernard WALKE (1874-1941), who was then a curate in St Ives. In 1904 'Ber' Walke (as he was known), a popular and evangelical high churchman, whose father before him had also been an Anglican priest in West Cornwall, moved on to a curacy in Polruan. Before their marriage, and perhaps about the same time as her sister Hilda left St Ives to move to London, Annie also moved to Polruan and established a studio in a sail loft overlooking the harbour.
The couple married in London in 1911, she approximately 34, and he at the age of 37, during his curacy at Polruan by Fowey. Two years later he became Vicar of St Hilary, near Marazion, immortalised in his autobiography, Twenty Years at St Hilary (1935), one of the books often referred to when researching artists in Cornwall. Walke invited Annie and a number of friends to decorate parts of the church interior, and these included Ernest PROCTER, Dod PROCTER, Roger Fry and Pog YGLESIAS among others. They had no children.
The two had many friends amongst the artists both in London and West Cornwall, and were introduced especially to the Lamorna crowd by Alfred James MUNNINGS. Laura KNIGHT described them, 'They were both long and thin, and Ber always wore dandy silk socks - he was not in the least like a parson to look at. A man with ideals that he lived up to-he was big - hearted enough to understand anyone and had it in him to enjoy vulgar fun as much as any. After we became intimate we often went to stay with the Walkes at St Hilary, as simple as any monastery in its furnishings.' Christopher Garrett, who has extensively researched the pair for a set of articles for the centennial of the time when the Walkes were resident in Polruan, has provided this material to the CAI, for research and study purposes. It includes a bibliography of her paintings, and writings, and family details of friendships with literary figures such as Walter de la Mare, and George Bernard Shaw.
The Walkes moved from St Hilary on retirement to The Battery, Mevagissey, and Ber died 25 June, 1941. She lived on alone at Battery House until shortly before she died. She rarely painted after 1950 but wrote poetry that was published in 1963. She died in 1965 aged 88, and is buried in St Erth Cemetery, near St Hilary and Lelant. Bernard was buried 25 years earlier in the cemetery at Lelant Church.
Further information on Annie Walke can be found at https://issue-2.materiajournal.com/pellini_vesaluoma/ - an article entitled 'Richness of Colour and Boldness of Outline: on Annie Walke's Artistic Practice', published in 2022 in the online journal Materia - Journal of Technical Art History.
The husband of the artist Annie WALKE (nee Fearon), Bernard Walke merits his own entry in this Index, being closely associated with the artists in west Cornwall working alongside his wife during the first part of the twentieth century. What follows is a revision (2014) of an article by Christopher 'Gus' Garrett (2006-11) entitled 'Bernard Walke and Polruan', which was originally published in the Lanteglos Parish News 2006-7).
The years 2004 to 2013 were the centenary of the period Bernard Walke lived and ministered in Polrun in the parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowey. Why is he still remembered and revered when many of his contemporaries throughout Cornwall have been long forgotten? One clue is that his friend in later life, Frank Baker, said Bernard Walke was 'a good man who could never be dull'.
Bernard Walke was the eldest of three sons born to Rev Nicholas Walke (1833-1899) and Eliza Anna Coope who had married on 1 September 1869 at Clifton, Bristol. According to the record of his birth at the General Register Office (GRO) he was born on 15 June 1874 at Redlynch, Wiltshire, although others have given the date as 14 June. Rather strangely his birth was registered about a month later just as 'boy' with no name stated (just over a year later the birth of his next younger brother, William Coope Walke, was recorded similarly). He was subsequently christened Nicolo Bernard Walke, his first Christian name 'Nicolo' being the name by which his father Nicholas was always known.
Because of his birth in Wiltshire and his subsequent training in the south-east followed by his first appointment in London, there is a tendency to think of him as an 'up-country' person. This time of his life was the anomaly, his parents' roots being firmly in Devon and Cornwall. Bernard Walke's father 'Nicolo' was born at Kingston in South Devon, and prior to his marriage had been curate at St Peters in Plymouth, Carmenellis in West Cornwall and St Charles the Martyr in Falmouth. It was presumably through this latter appointment that Bernard Walke's parents met: Eliza Anna's father, William John Coope, was rector of Falmouth from 1838 to 1870 and lived at Gyllyngdune House, Falmouth, which had been built by his father, General William Jesser Coope. [The Rev. William John Coope was the first Anglo-Catholic priest in Cornwall].
After being educated at home in the Vicarage of Redlynch Church, Lover near Salisbury on the edge of the New Forest, Bernard Walke attended Chichester Theological College. He began his ministry as a curate at St Michael and All Angels in Walthamstow, a large Anglo-Catholic church, under Father Ernest Blaxland Clarabut MA, who later became Rector of Blisland, Cornwall from 1913 to 1935.
In 1902 Bernard Walke became Curate at St Ives, Cornwall: at that date St Ives only had the Parish Church and a Mission Room, St Nicholas' Mariners' Church not being opened until 1905. One feature of Bernard Walke's ministry there was taking the service out of the church to the people, for example on the quay, and another feature was leading processions through the streets. [Such events were recorded by the artist W H Y Titcomb in his paintings 'A Pilot' and 'The Church in Cornwall: A Rogation Day Procession' respectively, the former depicting Bernard Walke as the preacher].
He left St Ives during 1904 after being removed from his duties by the Bishop of Truro, essentially because he and the Vicar agreed that they could not work together. His leaving was much to the dismay of many parishioners, from fishermen to artists, and the subject of a memorandum from them to the Bishop of Truro which was full of praise for his qualities and achievements there. Essentially he had achieved precisely what the Church had found very difficult in the preceding fifty years, namely to make the church attractive to 'the working classes' and particularly to those for whom religion had not played any major part in their lives previously.
St Ives' loss however was Polruan's gain: a vacancy for a curate at Polruan arose and Bernard Walke was appointed to it. Whilst John Trounsel Mugford was the Vicar of Lanteglos the Mission Church or Chapel of Ease of St Saviours had been built in Polruan to seat 350 people; the first service being Matins on 22 October 1891. Mugford left the parish in 1902 and in 1903 Charles Francis Trusted became the new Vicar. It appears that he and Bernard Walke developed an agreeable partnership dividing the responsibilities of the parish and its two churches, Trusted concentrating principally on Lanteglos Parish Church, including its restoration, and the country parts of the parish whilst Bernard Walke concentrated his efforts on St Saviours and the people of Polruan. From reports it would appear that Bernard Walke continued in Polruan as he had done in St Ives, with outdoor services and processions, and with similar effect on increasing the church's congregation. During his period in Polruan a daily mass became the norm and it appears that the church was always full for services, particularly on Sundays.
On 6 September 1911 Bernard Walke married Annie Fearon at St John the Baptist Church, Marlborough Street, London. It appears likely he and Annie had first met in St Ives, presumably through her sister Hilda. [Hilda had come to Cornwall earlier, during 1900, and was in St Ives continuing her art studies under Algernon Talmage.] Henceforth she became known and addressed as 'Annie Walke' by everyone including her husband. Prior to marriage Bernard Walke is understood to have lived in a number of locations in the village, including 'Hill House'. After marriage he and Annie Walke lived at Number 1 Fore Street, Polruan over 'The Corner Shop' which is now 'Crumpets'. Interestingly on the GRO record of their marriage in London he gave his address just as '2 West Street', the inference is a London address but it appears to be more likely a Polruan address!
Their life in Polruan and his ministry here unfortunately came to an end only a year or so later when Rev. Trusted left the parish. However fortunately Bernard Walke was immediately offered the living of St Hilary near Marazion where he remained from 1913 until his retirement in 1936, this period of his life being vividly described in his autobiography 'Twenty Years at St Hilary'. Whilst there he became well known nationally during the mid-1920s to mid-1930s as a result of writing and directing a number of Nativity plays, most notably 'Bethlehem' which were broadcast live nationally from St Hilary in the early days of 'the wireless'. But that is another story, another chapter in the life of this remarkable and fascinating man.