The son of a successful medalist, also called Allan, he was born in London and educated at Highgate School. He studied at South Kensington under Sir Hamo Thorneycroft, where he won silver medals. His first RA exhibit was a medal depicting his father. Having decided on ordination in the Anglican church, Wyon moved to Saltash in 1935, and was then appointed Vicar of Newlyn.
He first became involved with the Newlyn Society of Artists in 1936, exhibiting a large sculpture, The Sorrows and Mankind, in the NAG Exhibition of 1937, and remaining a staunch supporter until he left the district in 1955. Wyon opened the STISA Summer Exhibition of 1943, and it may have been this occasion that prompted him to become involved with STISA, the first distinguished sculptor to do so (Tovey).
To demonstrate the close links between the Newlyn and St Ives Societies, the Committee of the Newlyn Society in 1943 comprised Wyon, Dod PROCTER, Eleanor HUGHES and Alethea GARSTIN, all of whom were members of STISA. Unsurprisingly his sculptures often had a religious subject, and one of his finer pieces was The Worshipper. On the death of Stanhope FORBES in 1947, Wyon was commissioned to produce a sculptured panel of Forbes' head, and this was fixed to the lower front façade of the Newlyn Art Gallery, unveiled in 1948 by Sir Alfred MUNNINGS, then both President of the RA and STISA.
Also in 1947, the final year of the life of Robert Borlase SMART, he painted a portrait of that prominent painter-artist (Whybrow). A highly-rated medalist, he was responsible for artistic work at the Royal Mint, and also exhibited some medal works with STISA.
A correspondent (2018) has sent us a link to a British Pathe news clip of 1941, showing the Rev Allan Wyon in his studio, creating the wax model for the Lloyds War Medal for Bravery at Sea, later cast in silver.
The artist studied at the Dublin School of Art, at the RA Schools, and with Sir Arthur Cope. She exhibited nationally (GI, RHA) from 1905-1928, and married Allan Gairdner WYON.
It is not clear from extant records how frequently she exhibited her work, or even continued to work. However, she exhibited Spring at the NAG Exhibition of 1937, and worked closely with the committees supporting and sustaining the Newlyn Art Gallery through the war years.
She died on 26 April 1969 at Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire.
Katherine Xulu is a Launceston-based artist specialising in screenprinting. She was educated at Bryanston School in Blandford Forum, Dorset, and was a student at Medway College of Art & Design before studying at Central St Martins School of Art from 1990 to 1994, graduating with a BA (Hons) in Fashion. She says: 'I like to explore love, fate and the fragility of life in my screenprints.'
Her work can be seen in the Pop Cafe Gallery, Wadebridge, and at Seventh Wave in Bude.
A founder member of STISA, he had been resident in St Ives for some years as his first Show Day was in 1913. He lived at Sunrise, Penbeagle, and in the 1920s he shared Atlantic Studio with Alfred Charles BAILEY. In the 1924 Show Day he exhibited three works: Porthemor Beach, a large painting of the breakwater at the back of the Island, and a smaller piece of the Zennor Moors, bright with heather. He and Bailey both showed together from Atlantic Studio. He is not referred to after 1930, and is not listed in standard reference books.
Alex Yarlett spent his childhood in Cornwall and is currently based in Falmouth. While studying for a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Cardiff School of Art & Design, he became apprenticed to Paul Wadsworth.
He is represented by Padstow Gallery, Livingstone St Ives, and Far & Wild Perranporth.
One of the kindest and funniest of men, Fred Yates had a hearty sense of humour and a prolific temperament, making his works of art a joy to behold, and for him a joy to create. Fred had homes in Cornwall and in France in later years and worked hard in both places. His Lowry-esque and colourful paintings, full of people, animals, and naively constructed buildings were the work of a natural artist, largely self-trained but intelligently aware of social and political ideas.
Fred was born in Urmston, Manchester, serving in WWII in the Grenadier Guards. He began painting after the war when he was in a teacher training course back in Manchester, coming under the direct influence of L S Lowry. By 1970 he had moved to West Cornwall, working full-time as an artist and making friends with local artists, such as Theresa GILDER and others at the Penzance Art School. In the 1990s he decided to make his home, for at least most of each year, in France, and chose a small village, Rancon in the Haute-Vienne where he painted local scenes and people as in Cornwall. The first of several homes, he travelled back to Cornwall with some frequency where he also showed his work. His paintings, heavily laden with paint, were sometimes not quite dry, as they leapt off the walls into the hands of eager collectors.
Since his death in 2008, a huge surge of interest has been shown in his work, and this continues to the present (2011).
Listed as an exhibitor-painter in the summer exhibition at NAG in 1966. No further detail available at present.
The sister of Dorothy, both being daughters of the Catalan painter Vincent Philip Yglesias (1846-1911), a London-based artist associated for 13 years with the artists' colony at Walberswick, Suffolk (Scott).
After their father's death the family moved to Cornwall from north London, the two sisters, their brother and their mother Edith, also an artist, first coming to Cornwall in 1912 and settling at Lamorna. Phyllis (aka Pog) was a London art student concentrating on sculpture. Close friends and exhibitors with the Birch family, together they ran a small gift shop at the foot of the Flagstaff Cottage driveway, with the Birches selling toys and small paintings.
In 1928 the sisters began the bird hospital and sanctuary, which Dorothy described in the Cry of a Bird. Pog created simple designs in stained wood. Her friend Ella Louise NAPER especially admired her work and owned several of her sculptures. Bernard WALKE, parish priest of St Hilary, asked her for a contribution of her work toward the Lady Chapel, so Pog created a life-size crucifix which is on the north wall of the church (Illus, C Fox). Her special friendship with Laura KNIGHT and Mornie BIRCH and her family is explored in Lamorna KERR's reminiscences (Hardie) of artistic life in Lamorna. Lamorna Birch's headstone at Paul Churchyard was carved by Pog.
Work by this artist is included in the art collection of University College Falmouth (UCF).
Melanie Young was born in Stockport but lives and works in Cornwall. Her paintings are figurative, based on personal experience and the interaction of the viewer. For her, the creative process is often chaotic, as she paints following instinct and emotion, until a particular figure and story is drawn out. Her work challenges the audience to embrace the emotions caught in the painting, and respond to them in a very raw instinctual way.
Simon Young is recently retired from the Armed Forces. He lives in Saltash and has exhibited his work with Drawn to the Valley. His favourite medium is watercolour.
Pippa Young graduated from University College Falmouth with a BA (Hons) in 2012. Her show 'Traces' took place (Dec 2010-Jan 2011) in a new art exhibition space, called 'the third room' opened at the already established New Street Gallery, in Penzance, as its inaugural show. The exhibition was inspired by an archive of family photographs. Many works depict the Isles of Scilly a century ago, together with other remnants of past lives in Cornwall. The artist's intentions, as explained in a 'What's On' review (CM), is to explore ideas of permanence and transience through items which document the personal and intimate.
She has said: 'My aim is to express something of the transience and vulnerability of the human condition as well as the surreal and fragmented nature of the world around us.' The figures in her paintings echo art-historical subjects but are de-contextualised, creating a disturbing effect upon the viewer.
Young exhibits widely, in Cornwall and beyond. In 2012 she was shortlisted for the National Open Art Competition.
The artist was born in Napier, New Zealand, the daughter and second child of Edward (born in Wales, died in NZ 1882) and Edith Towgood. Her widowed mother brought Mary and her three sisters to live in England, where Mary later attended the RA Schools, and studied in Newlyn (C Wood), possibly with GARSTIN, before her marriage.
In 1899 she married the genre and portrait painter John Young-Hunter, and with him had one daughter, Gabrielle (b1906). She exhibited at the RA and worked as a portraitist in Scotland and England until 1915, when the family went to the United States, living first in New York City and subsequently in Taos, New Mexico. The couple parted in 1921 when she moved to Berkeley, Californa, building a home in Carmel where she subsequently died.
Douglas Zadek, born in London in 1913, studied at the Bauhaus. When it closed down in the early 1930s he returned to London. He worked for Muriel Bell at the Malvern Pottery before accepting Bernard LEACH's invitation to join the Leach Pottery in 1936, staying there for two years. Harry and May Davis had departed to set up their own pottery, and Douglas would be their replacement assistant. His special friendship with Dicon NANCE, a furniture maker at the quay in St Ives, meant that together they could build many of the Leach pottery wheels.
Zadek founded Cobham Pottery (Surrey Pottery Ltd), which ran from 1947 to 1956. He worked with many distinguished potters and remained good friends with Bernard Leach until Leach's death in 1979. He is best known for his coloured slip decorated earthenware.
His work is included in the automata collection at the Falmouth Art Gallery.
Born in Tehran, Persia, she received her formal introduction to art through its history at the University of Warwick, followed by an honours degree in fine art from the Slade (1986-91) and a PhD from the Falmouth Art College. Partou was Artist in Residence at Tate St Ives, 2003-4. From 1993 until her early death from cancer in 2008, she lived and worked in Cornwall.
In her obituary for The Guardian (2008) Professor Penny Florence, who supervised Partou's studies at Falmouth, wrote the following about her friend: 'At her death, Partou was preparing for publication a number of plays, stories and reflections, all of which are formally innovative and written in a clear and original voice. They convey a strong sense of her lightness and charm, and they enrich the understanding of her use of mythological allusion in painting.'
She was married to the artist Richard COOK.
Elizabeth Rosemary Ziar [nee Rowe] was born in the Sheaf of Wheat public house, and throughout her long working life she remained faithful to the spirit of West Cornwall. She was known as 'Ro' to early friends, and Rosemary thereafter. Her mother, Grace Rowe [nee Trembath] had artistic ability and Rosemary excelled from a young age, winning national prizes for her illustrations and design whilst still at school.
In 1937 she enrolled at the Penzance School of Art under the inspirational principal James Lias who guided and nurtured her talent. WW II interrupted her studies and she joined the Land Army; later she fondly recalled picking bunches of violets while working in the fields of Penwith. After the war she returned to painting and exhibited with the NSA. She returned to art studies at Leonard FULLER's School of Painting at the Porthmeor Studios, St Ives.
Her work became increasingly experimental and her more traditional water colours began to give way to much bolder styles and more vibrant use of colour. In 1972 her paintings were first accepted at the Paris Salon, and thereafter her work was shown internationally in Italy and France. She won the Diplome d'Honneur at the Biarritz International Salon and the Coupe d'Antibes at the international exposition of paintings and sculpture in Juan-les-Pins. From that time her work was purchased by collectors from North America to New Zealand.
In 1991 Rosemary published Good Morrow Brother, a series of illustrated local stories centred on the land lying between St Ives and St Just, based on the recollections of her aunt, Mabel Trembath. Mabel's colourful memories also included recall of D H Lawrence's regular visits to the pub when heading to St Ives with his wife, Frieda. Rosemary's maternal grandfather was Madron Trembath who had been the mine captain at Geevor Mine. After his death, his wife Grace remarried Thomas Job, who subsequently became licensee of the Sheaf of Wheat Public House, which is where Rosemary's mother, also Grace, gave birth to her. Rosemary was able in her book to record and illustrate with line drawings - capturing the spirt of West Penwith at the beginning of the 20th century in both image and text.
She married the Penzance dentist, Ian Ziar, and the couple had one son.
Born in Mora, Sweden, February 18th 1860, and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Stockholm. He was greatly influenced by Egron Lundgren. He visited Devon 1882-4 staying especially at Clovelly. Zorn married in 1885 to Emma Lamm and they spent the winter of 1887-8 in St Ives, in the same period as WHISTLER and the Norwegian artists Finn SCHJERFBECK and Helene SCHJERFBECK visited and worked, before settling in Paris.
He exhibited A Fisherman, St Ives 1888 at the Paris Salon and received a First Class Medal and that triumph was followed by a Gold Medal there in 1899 for his Fish Sale, St Ives. Stanhope FORBES in his lecture (pp43-50 repr in Hardie 2009) 'A Newlyn Retrospect' comments: 'I remember finding in a house at St Ives where I was calling, four painters of four different nationalities: in that town, Zorn, the well-know Swedish artist, painted his first oil picture, which now hangs in the Luxembourg, and for it his palette was set by an equally celebrated American painter who at that time resided there.' Tovey includes two coloured plates (No 26 & 27) of the medal-winners now owned by the Luxembourg Museum, Paris, which over time has resulted in many artist visitors to St Ives.
His reputation was of the highest order, not only as the best-known Swedish painter, but also for his portraits, which include three US presidents. His wife Emma Zorn died on 04 January 1942. To honor the memory of her husband, she had worked to create a museum, which opened in 1939.