Born in Devon, Mary Allen has lived in Cornwall from a very young age. The coastal waters around Gwithian and St Ives were a formative influence on her but it was only after retirement that she had the opportunity to devote more time to her painting. Her first solo exhibition was held in 2007.
Her marine studies are painted from her studio at St Hilary Churchtown, near Penzance. She is a regular exhibitor at the Harbour Gallery in Portscatho.
Born in London, the artist studied at the Slade, in Munich and in Paris (1910-12). He travelled widely to paint landscapes, and his painting Spring Riot, Cornwall (1940) was selected as part of the Looking West Exhibition in 1987. Though included in this representative show at Newlyn and the Royal College of Art, there is no documentation of dates when he was working in Cornwall.
His paintings Derelict Clay Pit, Cornwall and Valley of Treen show time away from his London homebase. He designed posters for British Railways (BR), as many West Country artists did. Buckman comments on his sportsmanship (skiing and climbing) and his pleasure in travelling.
Allison studied art at the Royal College of Art, and is primarily known for portraits and figure studies. An early appointment was as Headmaster of Putney School of Art.
From 1901 he served as Headmaster of the Penzance School of Art until 1907, when he departed to take up another educational post (as Principal at the Portsmouth Municipal School of Art); he also became President of the Portsmouth and Hampshire Art Society.
In June 1913 he returned to the Penzance area, acting as HM School Inspector, to render a report on the falling numbers of day students at the School. (The primary reason for the decline was the independent offering by artists of lessons from their own studios and 'schools' in the area.)
Born in Windsor, Allnutt studied at the Slade and at Bushey, and in Paris, where her sister Mabel SHONE had also attended classes in the ateliers. By 1912, Emily had arrived in St Ives and shared Rose Lodge Studio, Wharf Road with artist friend Alice Hogarth NICHOLSON.
Her first exhibition locally was on Show Day 1912 at St Ives. The two women moved on to Gerrards Cross in 1915, and Allnutt did not return to live in St Ives until 1924, moving on to nearby Carbis Bay in 1931 where she lived at Chalfont Cottage (Tovey pp 188-9) where she died in 1944. She was a founder member of STISA and also a member of the Society of Women Artists SWA.
Born in London, England, Allom was apprenticed in 1819 to the architect Francis Goodwin. He was a founder member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and produced designs for buildings in London, which he carried out himself, as well as working with the architect Sir Charles Barry on numerous projects.
He produced many illustrations for publications of a topographical nature in the mid 1800s, including Devonshire and Cornwall Illustrated
Birmingham (Handsworth) artist recorded in Whybrow as introduced at STIAC. No further information at present.
Dutch-born British Classicist painter of great fame (OM, RA), whose wife Laura EPPS (1852-1909) was also a distinguished painter.
Her sister, Nellie EPPS (Mrs Edmund GOSSE), and her daughter Sylvia GOSSE were also painters who visited and worked in Cornwall. The family were occasional visitors to the St Ives Arts Club, and had many friends in the locale.
Fritz Althaus was born in Lewisham, Kent, and first learned to draw with the help of his mother who was talented amateur portrait-painter. His father, born in Germany, was a Professor of Music. He studied under the artist Axel H Haig, an artist who boarded with his family, followed by tutelage at St Martin's School of Art, the Westminster School of Art and the Royal Institution. Until 1893 he made his home in Maida Vale, London, while also travelling in the West Country, before deciding to move to Exeter. There he could paint along the coasts as far as Cornwall, including the Channel Islands. Oxford and Cambridge.
The artist is purported to have been a prolific marine painter up to 1900 (Brook-Hart), with over 50 oils and watercolours to his name. Almost all of his 18 RA exhibits were sea pieces off the Cornish and Devon coasts, one example being Cornish Luggers running for Shelter (1888). An 1893 painting, Trading vessels at their anchorage (w/c), is representative of his style.
Flanagan (2010) has also identified Althaus as painting in that other St Ives in Huntingdonshire in the 1880s and 90s, and reprints in colour Bridge Street, St Ives, 1902 which attests to his returning there to paint along the Ouse over at least three decades.
He exhibited and sold Sunset at NAG in October 1905, and Sullen Pool (Jan 1906). His NAG sales records extend his artistic activity by at least 6 years. By 1908 he was living in Headingley, Leeds and in 1909 he and his wife, Margaret Richardson Althaus (nee Henderson) had a son, Gerald Malcolm Theodore. In 1911 another son, Frederick John Basil, was born.
Because of the Great War, Althaus changed his name to Frederick B KERR (c1915). In the name of Fred KERR he was made Professor of Art at Leeds University (Mallalieu). However, this is as yet unconfirmed information of his occupation, as on his death certificate he is identified as 'a schoolmaster retired', living at Valroy (81 or 87 unclear), London Road, Camberley.
He died in 1962, in Frimley, Surrey (the Frimley and Camberley District Hospital, now the Frimley Children's Centre, Church Road, Frimley) at the advanced age of 99 years and 8 months (Bednar research, GRO death certificate on file) from a late case of pneumonia and congestive cardiac failure. The name on his death certificate is Frederick Bernard Kerr, and was attested to by his son, the informant Lt Col F J B Kerr, also of Camberley.
John Ambrose paints works which are popular in the USA as well as Britain. He frequently paints landscapes in Cornwall.
Ambrose was born in Grays, Essex, and studied at South East Essex Technical College and School of Art in Dagenham, followed by a year at the RA Schools under Peter Greenham. His wife was Moyra GILCHRIST, and the couple lived in Newlyn.
He was an artist of many talents, spanning the full range from teaching art to producing drawings, prints and paintings in oils and watercolour.
Locally he exhibited at the Orion Gallery, Penzance and then at NAG, in mixed and solo shows. He died of heart failure at Penzance Railway station as he was taking paintings to London.
Barry Amey is a sculptor based in Truro. His work is heavily influenced by the Cornish landscape and its heritage. HIs practice is concerned with the notion of time and how we perceive it, exploring the way time can both fracture and fragment.
He has completed artist residencies in Lands End, Cornwall and Leipzig, Germany. He was commissioned to create an outdoor site-specific sculpture in Exeter. He has a multitude of experience in teaching and running workshops, including working with communities on large-scale projects.
His work has been exhibited across the UK and internationally.
Sophie Anderson is a painter who lives in Botallack, near St Just. She also creates enamelled jewellery.
Born in Paris, Anderson studied under Steuben, and then moved with her French architect father and English mother to America at the outbreak of the revolution of 1848. As a successful portrait painter herself in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, she married the English artist Walter ANDERSON, and they moved to England in 1854 (living in London, Cumbria and Surrey).
In 1871, due to her ill health, the Andersons moved to Capri, returning in 1894 to settle in Falmouth, Cornwall. From Wood Lane Cottage she continued to paint and submit paintings to London exhibitions. On her death in 1903, at the age of 79 (GRO Index), she was buried in the cemetery at Swanvale in Falmouth.
Anderson has the distinction of being the first woman painter to have her work purchased by a public institution: the Liverpool Corporation acquired her painting Elaine in 1871 (Gaze). A world record price of over £1,000,000 for her work was achieved by No Walk Today at Sotheby's in 2008.
In October 2011 an important still-life by Anderson, 'Roses', was gifted to Falmouth Art Gallery by the Art Fund, in memory of Brian STEWART, director of the Gallery from 2000 until his untimely death in December 2010. Painted in 1894, after her move to Falmouth, this work has special significance as it is believed to have been exhibited at the original Falmouth Art Gallery in that year.
Walter Anderson was the English artist who married Sophie Gengembre ANDERSON at some point mid-19th century. Anderson was born in Peckham, London. The two painters shared the same sending in-addresses at the RA in 1867/8 and in 1870/1 when the Census also listed them as living at Bramley, Surrey. They had moved back to the UK from America in 1854, where they had both been painting successfully. Due to Sophie's ill health they lived in Capri from c1871 to 1888 or thereabouts.
On their return they lived at Wood Lane Cottage, Falmouth, where both artists died in the same year.
A correspondent (2022) has told us of an oil painting in her possession by Anderson of his wife Sophie. The candle-lit scene depicts the sitter in a dress decorated with roses.
Further information sought about his work.
Shelley Anderson is a Newlyn-based sculptor. Trained in silversmithing and metal fabrication, his work embodies both the maritime culture and metalworking heritage of his local area. His recent work is large-scale and organic. He also creates figurative and semi-figurative sculptures of sea creatures.
Newlyn subject in lists - no further information found.
An image for one of Tom Anderton's Cornish paintings has been sent in by a correspondent, for which many thanks!
Recently (2015) a correspondent has commented: 'I have a painting of T Anderton which my Dad bought c1965. It shows a man ploughing, with St Michael's Mount in the distant background. It needs to be cleaned and renovated because the colours are no longer vivid and I remember it being a very lovely painting which gave my parents a great deal of pleasure.'
Brian Andrew produces one-off ceramics. His primary subjects are British wildlife.
Andrew was born in Redruth, Cornwall, one of the few internationally recognised artists to begin their lives within the county. From 1954-58 he studied at the Falmouth School of Art before attending the Slade School, London the following year. In 1959 he travelled to France and Italy, before returning to London, and then took up a Visiting Artist post with the Portsmouth College of Art. From 1962 through 1970 David lived in Bournemouth, where he was Visiting Artist at both Bournemouth College of Art and Portsmouth College of Art.
In 1971 he moved to Canada where he set up the Printmaking Department at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, over a three year period before transferring to the Painting Department. Since 1977 he has lived mainly in Cornwall, with breaks of a year each in Crete and California, and a 10 year period back in Canada with summer visits for painting around Europe and the coasts of USA and Canada - often in a mobile studio 'converted from a recreational vehicle'. In his own words, he sees 'painting as a way of testing speculations about nature against the touchstone of artistic form...posing questions in colour and shape.' His paintings 'embrace both "thinking" and "sensing" (i.e. making sense)' of the visual.
David Andrew is married to Sally Fleetwood, and works from their home studios in Mousehole.
The son of two practising artists, Simon Andrew was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, schooled in West Cornwall, and studied science at Queen's University, Ontario, Canada, where his father was a Professor of Painting.
He turned his face against art initially, due to the clutch of artists around him as he was growing up, and took up science, only to discover that he wanted to pursue an artistic career in the long run. He did his MA in Fine Art at Newcastle.
Now he lives and paints in both Cornwall, where his father, the artist David ANDREW, has re-settled, and where his mother, the artist Lyn LEGRICE lives, and also in Canada where he maintains a home and studio.
A selection of his paintings, related to recent exhibitions, can be seen on the web
Born in Birkenhead, the artist exhibited the painting The Harbour of St Ives, Cornwall at the Paris Salon of 1932, within a four year exhibiting programme starting in 1830 at the Societe des Artistes until 1934.
Andrews was born in Newport, Monmouthshire and studied at Glasgow School of Art (1908-10) and at Heatherley's School of Fine Art with Gerald Massey.
She lived on Bellair Terrace, St Ives, and exhibited at Show Days well into the 1950s. A watercolourist, she painted local scenes, particularly around Zennor on the north coast. She also exhibited widely abroad.
Painter and sculptor, recorded in Whybrow St Ives 1921-1939 list. The artist was a member of Andrews family of Tregerthen, Zennor. Research is ongoing related to her studies and life as an artist. She lived for almost 80 years at Eastbourne, where she was an enthusiastic sculptor and painter.
During WWI she worked with refugees in Belgium with the Red Cross and the ambulance corps. Following the war she was honoured with a MBE for her services to the war effort. Recent correspondence also indicates that she was active in the suffrage movement in early 1900s. She died in Eastbourne at age 95, remaining an active artist.
In 2008 the Andrews-Westlake Family Archive was given to the Hypatia Trust by the late John Andrews, and this is in process of cataloguing. A collection of Elsie Andrews prints and sculptures form part of this legacy.
A linocut, A Station of the Cross by this artist (numbered 27) was donated to the Charity Auction in aid of establishing the West Cornwall Art Archive in 2004.