Martha Holmes's work takes its inspiration from her deep connection to the landscape of Cornwall.
Alan Holmes is originally from Nottingham but moved to St Ives in the early 2000s. His work has been exhibited not only in Cornwall, but also in Surrey and the Cotswolds.
Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, the artist studied at the Slade School under Professor Legros, who taught him the medium of etching, and where he became a friend of William Strang, the artist. He then worked for six months in 1885 with the Newlyn colony of artists before spending two influential years in Italy. The first painting that he sent to the RA, Painting the Sail, was executed in Newlyn, and in the same year he was elected a fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers, to which he had become a regular exhibitor. Though he continued to submit paintings to the RA for another decade, his primary interest and focus was on etchings.
Returning to the Slade, he became assistant-Master with special concentration on etching, for which outstanding abilities and sensitivity he became chiefly known. In 1897 he became the first keeper of the National Gallery of British Art (Tate), and in 1903 he was knighted.
In 1906, following the retirement of Sir Edward Poynter, he became Director of the Tate Gallery.
Initially noticed as a student (Whybrow's 1921-39 list), The St Ives Times records the artist as exhibiting at the Show Day of 1923, and also the following year with the title The Encroaching Tide, as well as oil paintings of fisher-girls. She exhibited from the Blue Bell Studio in 1924 (Tovey, p129). None of the standard references list her under this name, which suggests if she continued painting she may have married.
A correspondent (2022) has told us that his grandmother knew Ada Holt in London during the 1890s. She visited the artist in Cochin Hospital in Paris, where she died in 1929. Her final resting place was in Pere Lachaise cemetery.
Dora Holzhandler was born in Paris in 1928 of emigre Jewish/Polish parents. In 1934 the family moved to London. She returned to Paris at the age of 17 to study at the Sorbonne. In 1948 she became a student at the Anglo-French Art Centre in St Johns Wood, London, where she met and married a fellow student, George Swinford, and settled in Hampstead.
In an exhibiting career that began in 1949, Dora Holzhandler has shown her work at many venues in London, Bath, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. Abroad, her 'naive' paintings been seen widely in France, the Netherlands, Finland and the USA. She has strong connections with Cornwall, having spent the winter of 1975/76 living in St Ives, and remains a frequent visitor to the county. Recently an exhibition of her work was held at the Great Atlantic Gallery, Falmouth.
The unmarried niece of the Head of Household in the 1891 Census, Homan lived at 5 Whitstone Head, Whitstone, Cornwall. She was described as a thirty-one year old Music and Painting Artist, born at Sydenham, London.
Exhibiting from 1886-1905, the standard references do not mention an involvement of any kind with Cornwall, and give only London addresses for exhibition purposes. It is not currently known whether or not her work, exhibited widely, reflected Cornish subjects.
Caroline Hone is based in Paul, near Penzance. Her oil paintings are mainly landscape based and often feature animals, observed or remembered.
Hook left school aged fourteen, with a prize for drawing; he was subsequently mentored by John Constable. His coastal views of the Cornish coast were purchased by Sir Henry Tate, and his work formed part of the original collection of the Tate Gallery.
Squire Hook is mentioned by Garstin in his Preface to the Whitechapel Exhibition of 1902 as being a notable earlier painter to discover Cornwall as a 'painterly place', before the 1880s had 'opened' its beauties to many artists.
Stated to be 'one of our most popular oils, Sennen Crabbers, best represents our Cornish collections' in the introduction to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall entry in the Public Foundation Catalogue (p36 of PFC).
Mark Hooper was born in Redruth and lives and works in Newlyn. He studied art initially at Falmouth School of Art, then obtained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of Brighton. A fascination for the human face and the role it plays in identification is the motivating force behind Mark's work.
Roberta Hopkins lives in Lostwithiel. She trained as a graphic designer in Bristol, and moved to Cornwall in 2010. Working as a jewellery designer, she had to put her business on hold during the pandemic, and so turned her attention to painting instead.
Hopkins was born on 30 December 1847 in London (and died there on 10 September 1930; GRO). Arthur was the younger brother of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and was educated at Lancing College, Sussex. He entered the RA Schools in 1872, and began exhibiting at main London galleries from that time. In 1879 he exhibited a Newlyn title at the RA, placing his presence in West Cornwall amongst the earliest of the artists. As an illustrator he contributed to The Graphic, Punch and Illustrated London News, working on the serial version of Hardy's Return of the Native, among other things.
Ezra Pound, reviewing an RWS show with the psuedonym of B H Dias, observed of a Hopkins work: 'Victorian era still dragging on; most unfortunate.'
Duncan Hopkins is a multimedia artist who obtained a BA in Graphic Design from Bristol Polytechnic in 1991. He continued his studies at Strode College, Somerset, and in 2011 was awarded an MA in Fine Art from University College Falmouth. He has exhibited extensively in Cornwall and beyond.
A recent correspondent (2013) writes about this artist:
'You might be interested to know that there is a rather beautiful and accomplished reredos in the Art Nouveaux style by her in the Parish Church at Kemerton, Gloucestershire. Her family owned a house there and she is buried in the churchyard.
She belonged to a large and wealthy land-owning family of soldiers, lawyers and clergymen of Herefordshire/ Gloucestershire, ultimately decimated by the 1st WW and early deaths. Perhaps an excess of Christian zeal didn't help - the late clergyman relatives lived to a good age but died without issue.
Although Gwendoline's surname was Hopton this was because her great grandfather, William Parsons, changed his name to Hopton. This was his mother Deborah's maiden name. The Hoptons owned substantial estates that he inherited including a very grand house at Canon Frome.'
Gwen joined the St Ives artists' colony some time between 1901 and 1910. She was the daughter of Captain Charles Hopton of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Packing Fish, St Ives was included in the 2002 Group Show at Penlee House and remains in the Art Collection there. The artist died as a result of a cycling accident near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire.
In his researches for the Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby, Yorkshire, George Bednar has sent the following information (2014): In an article written by Norman GARSTIN for the 1912 December issue of The Studio, Hopwood is one of only five fellow-artists mentioned in The Art of Harold and Laura Knight, when recalling their decade based at Staithes on the Yorkshire coast. Also mentioned is Frederick William JACKSON, who had also been in the St Ives colony that same year.
Frances Horn was born in Pulloxhill, Bedfordshire. She and her sister, Katherine S Horn, settled with their widowed mother, Alice, in St Ives in the latter part of the 1890s. They lived at 90 Talland Road (now known as Pednolver Terrace). Frances was an artist-painter (according to the 1901 Census) who studied with Julius OLSSON and Algernon TALMAGE in their classes. She is recorded as giving exhibition addresses in Totnes, Devon (1903) and in Camberley, Surrey (1904), only to return to St Ives as an address in 1905 suggests (J&G, information filed under LUCK*).
She exhibited at the Whitechapel Exhibition of 1902, showing In the Harbour, St Ives, and in the same year exhibited a view of Mousehole at the RCPS, Falmouth. She also exhibited at most of the St Ives Show Days up until 1909, the year of her marriage. Tovey reveals in his social history of the artists in the St Ives community that, for some unconfirmed reason, the standard reference books (such as Johnson & Greutzner and also Whybrow - perhaps jointly one from the other) seem to have picked up information of her marriage to a Mr Luck*, when in fact she married one William Alfred Elliot Coxon, then resident in Egypt (St Ives Weekly Summary 26/6/1909). In any case, her art career appears to have ended there - unless further information is forthcoming.
NAG exhibitor in the Craft section 1928.
Mrs Horne had founded the St Ives Handcraft Guild in 1920, and had also been instrumental in helping to establish the LEACH POTTERY in St Ives, both of these with the objective of creating creative employment for the community. She did not think of herself as an artist as such but was a strong supporter of the colony and their families.
Frances and her husband, wealthy rice merchant David Horne, had come to St Ives during the war years (WWI) from Richmond, Surrey, and in 1919 purchased the large estate home of Tremorna whilst already owning The Croft in St Ives (which they sold). From the property at Tremorna was developed the later home of Little Parc Owles, which is famous for its associations with the Adrian STOKES family and guests, and the Peter LANYON family of artists. The house was sold in 1923 due to David's early death at forty-eight. Frances remained in West Cornwall and continued to support local artistic activities in the community.
Rosemary Horne is a graduate of Exeter University, where she studied ceramics, photography and painting. She returned to her native Cornwall in 2001.