Cornish Art and Artists

A totally off-the-wall happening type of project that celebrated the creative talents of the many artists and performers that contributed.

ISBN 9780953800063

The intimate and wry biography of an influential and controversial realist painter whose career spanned the 20th century.

ISBN 9781872971377

"A comprehensive and affectionate critique of the work of the primitivist painter based out of St Ives, Cornwall in the 19th century.

ISBN 9781841140728

Drawing on the West Cornwall Art Archive and many other sources, this profusely illustrated book is the most comprehensive survey ever compiled of painters, draughtsmen and women, sculptors and craftspeople working in Newlyn. The supporting information includes exhibiting records, collections in which the work may be viewed today and bibliographic sources. The artist profiles are supplemented by essays and a rich variety of contemporaneous source material from the Newlyn colony. Topics covered include photography as art, the artists' schools and classes, with full lists of those artists who attended the Forbes' school, and the Arts and Crafts movement in West Cornwall, including the Newlyn copper industry. This title will become the major source book for Newlyn artists of this period. Interest in the artists of Cornwall currently is at a record high. It is published to coincide with a major exhibition at Penlee House Gallery, Penzance.


ISBN 9780953260966

The cross-cultural collaboration of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada was a seminal event in the history of modern studio ceramics. Working together at St Ives, they and their disciples were a driving influence behind the worldwide resurgence of the craft aesthetic. George and Cornelia Wingfield Digby were early and far-sighted patrons of this circle, and assembled a famous collection of their pottery. Presenting the finest pieces from the collection, this book documents a momentous collaboration through the discriminating eyes and the historically important reminiscences of the Wingfield Digbys.

ISBN: 9780951770047

This book shows the St Ives' artist's wide subject matter from his watercolours in the 1950s to his oil paintings and his sophisticated conte drawings. Includes essays by various experts and a reproduction of the interview with his mother in 1973

ISBN 9781900178082

Denis Val Baker's charming postcard from the early 1960's, details a romantic period for British art when a new generation of post-war artists flocked to St Ives to re-establish a venerable school which had it's roots in the Victorian era.
The new generation included such giants as Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Peter Lanyon amongst a cast of hundreds,who took studios in converted fish net lofts and old warehouses, transforming the sleepy fishing harbour town into a venerable boheimian idyll.
Traditionalists and modernists established their own galleries and the political intrigues which were fought out in the bar of the Sloop Inn and other popular watering holes are detailed vividly by the author.
Val Baker intelligently constructs the history of the post-war St Ives art movement...how Cornish culture,society and the unique environment impacted upon the art movement and provides us with a fullsome picture of life within this unique community.

ISBN: 9781900178136

ISBN 9781872971087

Eric Ward is one of the few native professional artists out of the many who have made it their home. He will need no introduction to those who already know St Ives, for his career as a fisherman, harbourmaster and lifeboat Coxswain there assured his celebrity long before painting became his livelihood. For visitors to the town, and particularly those in search of its art, Eric's portrayal in paint of the landscape, people and places of St Ives provide a direct link back to the early masters. The story of the Cornish harbour town of St Ives is so tightly tied to painting and painters that it is almost impossible to think of one without the other. For well over a hundred years artists have congregated here, taking advantage of its famed 'shining sands' to create art works of international significance. Few other places on earth can have been so lovingly and endlessly portrayed in paint. Eric Ward's pictures continue the best traditions of the St Ives school of painting, exemplified by the great artists of the past. His passion and intimate knowledge of his native town is what is captured on each canvas - and the hundred or so painting included in this book provide superb portraits and reflection of St Ives, its people and the Cornish landscape and beyond.

ISBN: 9781841142623

Glyn Macey is one of Cornwall’s foremost young artists. This book contains a selection of his finest paintings, providing those who already know his work with a sumptuous reminder of range and variety. While for those who have yet to get to know the artist, the book gives a fascinating background to the artist and his work.

ISBN: 9781841147246

Presented in a travel-journal format, this sketchbook features drawings by Cornish artist Graham Clarke. Each page features sketches, comic doodles, recipes and humorous descriptions of the various places he has visited, including St Ives, the Lizard, Looe and his summer home of Mullion.

ISBN 9780953696925

Harold Harvey was one of the least known but most prolific of the Newlyn School, and his pictures depict Cornish life and people with vivid colour and insight. This book contains the first significant biography of the artist, a valuable introductory essay and full catalogue raisonne. With over one hundred colour and many black and white illustrations.

COVER PRICE £24.99

ISBN: 9781900178532

A new book on the life and work of artist and writer Tom Cross. The publication of this book "Helford", is to coincide with a major exhibition of his paintings to be held at Trelowarren between 8th-22nd October 2005. This high quality hardback book contains over 100 paintings by Tom Cross who has lived in Cornwall for thirty years, many of these in his home overlooking one of the small creeks on the Helford River. The book contains the fascinating life-story of this artist, teacher and art historian and reveals through his words and paintings the influences in his work, capturing through his Cornish paintings the very spirit of the landscapes of the Helford River. The Helford River and its surrounding landscape has been described as the jewel in Cornwall's crown. There is an irresistible romance to the place, its tree-shrouded tidal waters hidden and inaccessible to modern traffic. The place names here have their own beauty and charm; Gweek, Port Navas, Constantine. Here too Daphne du Maurier made Frenchman's Creek forever famous. These are the influences behind the Helford River paintings of Tom Cross.

ISBN: 9781841144368

Short biography & critical assessment of Roger Hilton's work, in which the author focusses on the rich complexity & cultural significance of the artist's later work in gouache.

ISBN: 9781900178051

Two naive/primitive St Ives artists living in the same fishing village and painting their views of their very different life experiences. Also highlights other artists working in a similar vein.

ISBN: 9781900178969

The Victorian painter John Brett delighted in the natural world. As a Pre-Raphaelite in the mid-century, he created glowing landscapes, famously the Stonebreaker of 1857 and The Val d'Aosta painted in the following year, which showed all the qualities of the Pre-Raphaelites, truthfulness to nature and almost obsessional attention to detail. He was at this time influenced by the teachings of John Ruskin, although their friendship was to end in some acrimony. There were to be other sides to John Brett and from the 1870s onwards he devoted much of his time to painting the sea and the coast of the British Isles, including, as this sumptuous book shows, the many faces and colours of Cornwall. Painting during long family holidays, he left over 200 known views of the coastline from Fowey in the east to Bude in the north. In thirty years, he recorded with Ruskinian precision and Pre-Raphaelite intensity of colour its varied beauties, revelling in the diverse moods of sea and sky, the golden sands and the majesty and grandeur of the Cornish cliffs. Three experts on John Brett discuss his life and work, his relations with Ruskin and his time in Cornwall, concluding with a large selection of the paintings.

COVER PRICE £18.95

ISBN: 9781904537519

Through their close friendships, Ella and Charles Naper helped define the Lamorna art colony in its heyday.
Ella learned handicrafts at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts under Frederick Partridge, a disciple of the great arts and crafts practitioner C R Ashbee and later joined his jewellery workshop at Branscombe in south Devon. There she developed and refined her feel for art nouveau. Ella married Charles Naper, a young architect and painter. They moved to Lamorna in 1912, building Trewoofe at the head of the valley. They soon became part of the Lamorna Birch circle, making lifelong friendships with Laura and Harold Knight, Harold and Gertrude Harvey, and the lesbian painter Gluck. In the early 1920s Ella set up the Lamorna Pottery with Kate Westrup, producing beautifully modelled ceramic figures. Charles Naper was an accomplished landscape painter, best known for his studies of the geometry of cliffs and the patterns and shapes of rock formations.


ISBN: 9781904537045

The first collective study of Britain's far-flung coastal art colonies in Newlyn, St Ives, Lamorna, Walberswick, Staithes, Cullercoats, Cockburnspath and Kirkcudbright. It comes at a time of renewed interest in the artists who worked in these late-nineteenth-century colonies. The artists were often linked through mutual friendships made during study at the Parisian ateliers and summers spent in the French art colonies of Grez-sur-Loing or Pont-Aven. Each of the British colonies was sited in a small community dependent on fishing or farming and far enough away from urban centres to retain much of their old customs and way of life. The authors trace the development of the colonies in the twentieth century, when styles and subjects changed, sometimes sparked by the decline of the fishing industry, the influx of middle-class tourists and the encroachment of industrialisation. Many of the paintings produced at the eight colonies were concerned with rendering a 'truthful' depiction of a particular time and place, and can now be seen as a celebration of various unique aspects of a British way of life that was fast disappearing.

ISBN: 9781904537267

The artists' community in St. Ives is recognised internationally as having played a leading part in the development of one of the most significant art movements of the modern era. At the outbreak of the Second World War, St. Ives became home for a small group of the most progressive artists and sculptors, including notably Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, already leaders in the advance art movements of the 1930s, and committed to the principle of abstraction. Their work drew together a group of younger artists who were to make St. Ives a centre of avant garde activity in post-war Britain. In this book, Tom Cross draws on conversations and interviews with many of these artists, evoking the nature and spirit of the colony and its members.

ISBN: 9781841145648

The death of Robert Lenkiewicz in 2002 brought to an end the life of a remarkable artist - truly a legend in his own lifetime. While his name held a particular resonance for westcountry people his work was of international importance and in the months following his death his paintings have become increasingly sought after. But Lenkiewicz was by no means easily understood and his complex personality demands understanding if we are to fully appreciate his paintings. Author, Keith Nichols, a clinical psychologist and friend of the artist, is ideally placed to provide such an insight.This book is both an affectionate memorial to Robert Lenkiewicz together with an analysis of certain aspects of his life, work and psychology. Robert Lenkiewicz - The Artist and The Man is not a biography as such but rather a look at the man as the author and others knew him personally. It includes many photographys of the artist at work, his studio, intimate portraits, and many complete paintings. Produced in two editions, including a limited slipcase for collectors, this book is essential reading for anyone for has had a connection with this charismatic artist.The Author - Keith Nichols, is a clinical psychologist and academic. While his book is based on a long term friendship with the artist, the author's professional interests provide the basis on which the study is made.

ISBN: 9781841144573

The Shining Sands by Tom Cross is the remarkable story of the colony of artists who were inspired by the people, landscape and light of West Cornwall. Now internationally celebrated, they are forever to be associated with the small fishing ports of Newlyn and St Ives.

ISBN: 9781841147000

ISBN: 9781900178778

ISBN: 9781900178723