To ward off the gloom of these dark December days, I’m taking a look at a painter whose work simply celebrates the joy of life. Joan Gillchrest moved to Mousehole from London in 1958. She was able to buy a cottage overlooking the harbour by selling a sapphire ring and sable coat that she had inherited.

Joan's partner and fellow artist, Adrian Ryan, had introduced her to Cornwall some years earlier. He had many friends in the area including Betty John, daughter-in-law of the painter Augustus John. Joan was a strong-willed character who did not suffer fools gladly. The couple’s co-habitation in Mousehole must have been tempestuous. Intent on consolidating his status alongside St Ives figures such as Peter Lanyon and Patrick Heron, Adrian dismissed her painting as ‘gimmicky’. He is reported to have turned her paintings to the wall if he expected important visitors.

While Joan enjoyed a lively social life with Adrian, mixing in artistic circles, by 1965 she had had enough, and ended the relationship. Liberated from her partner’s disapproval, she was at last able to express herself without constraint, developing a unique style which recorded the everyday lives of ordinary people with empathy and humour. For the next half century Mousehole and its surrounding area became the inspiration for her paintings.

Joan was born into a wealthy family in 1918. Her paternal forbears included several distinguished architects. Perhaps the most well-known was her great-grandfather, Sir George Gilbert Scott, responsible for such iconic landmarks as the Albert Memorial and St Pancras Station. Her father was an eminent radiologist, with a propensity for sketching caricatures. Her mother, an accomplished pianist, was from Australia.

At the age of 15, with her parents’ encouragement, Joan was allowed to leave home to experience life in Paris. Returning two years later, she enrolled at art school in London and in 1936 exhibited a still life at the Royal Academy. On the outbreak of the Second World War Joan volunteered as an ambulance driver. Marriage to Samuel Gillchrest, a barrister, entailed a move to Pirbeck, where he was stationed for the remainder of the war. Her husband’s social standing and the demands of motherhood combined to curtail her artistic ambition. The marriage was short-lived and in 1953 she found herself having to support her two young children. A strikingly attractive woman who combined elegance with bohemianism, Joan became sought after as a fashion model. Later, living in Chelsea, she worked as an artist’s model. It was here that she met Adrian Ryan.

Her love affair with the town and people of Mousehole lasted fifty years, ending with her death in 2008. During this period she witnessed great changes, such as the reduction of the fishing fleets and the closure of the mines. A fascination for architecture is integral to Joan’s paintings. Many of the churches and chapels of the Penwith peninsula appear in her works, as do the engine houses, a poignant reminder of a vanished way of life.

While Joan admired the work of Alfred Wallis and Christopher Wood, she could not be described as a truly naïve painter and consequently her work, while popular, failed to achieve critical acclaim. She painted in order to give people enjoyment, rarely visiting exhibitions. According to the artist she had no wish to be influenced by the work of others. Her first solo show was held at Plymouth Art Gallery in 1969 and from the early 1970s onwards she was represented by the Newlyn Orion Gallery. There was an introspective element to her art, which found expression in works commemorating events such as the Torrey Canyon oil spill of 1967 and the Penlee Lifeboat disaster of 1981. These tragedies affected her deeply but were so personal to her that her canvases on these subjects were never exhibited in public.

Joan was bemused by the demand for her work. Her exuberant spirit and involvement in the local community are qualities very much in evidence in paintings which reveal her warmth and compassion. In later life she became somewhat reclusive and shunned publicity. She was happiest painting and spending time in her conservatory, surrounded by an abundance of plants whose profusion at times threatened to obscure the wonderful view of the harbour below.

At Christmas, Mousehole becomes a magnet for visitors from far and wide, drawn by the spectacle of this picturesque port, lit up every evening by a chain of lights. These are strung from house to house, right round the harbour, embracing the community in a unique mid-winter celebration. The custom began in 1963, when Joan Gillchrest decided to hang some festive lights across the front of her house. The idea caught on, and today her grandson Sam is among the volunteers responsible for maintaining this tradition.
Helen Hoyle 2010 (cornishmuse.blogspot.com)

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).
Cornwall Artists Index

Born in Taunton, Somerset, Giles was the son of an engine driver for the Great Western Railway. His first trips to Cornwall were in the leading carriage of the train which his father drove from Taunton to Penzance, and John Branfield (2005) describes in his personal memoir of his St Agnes friend, how excited Tony always was in being in Cornwall. Art was his favourite subject at school (Huish's) and when he left school he took up an apprenticeship as a cartographic draughtsman at the Admiralty Hydrographic Office near Taunton.

Dust jacket information: 'Giles's paintings were inspired by the way man has shaped the Cornish landscape. He painted railway tracks and viaducts, clay workings and mine buildings, harbours and chapels in a very lively, highly individual style.' Frank Ruhrmund (journalist/art reviewer, Cornishman & other newspapers) concluded that Tony Giles was 'one of Cornwall's most powerful and prolific, and strange as it may seem, still most under-rated artists.' [CAW]

He never lost the magic of those trips and in 1959 he was able to move to Cornwall and work in the planning department of County Hall. In his spare time he painted compulsively, the railway lines and viaducts of the county, its clay workings and mine buildings, its harbours and chapels.[MHG]
Cornwall Artists Index
Market House Gallery

Associated with Falmouth, a painting by Warren entitled Fire Crew Attending a Blaze (acrylic on board) is in the possession of Truro Fire Station.
Cornwall Artists Index

John Miller was a kind and generous patron to many good causes, frequently supporting museums, churches and schools by the donation of paintings that could be auctioned, raffled or sold on behalf of the relevant mission. Taking an essentially religious perspective on life, John played a significant pastoral role in Anglican activities in Cornwall in later years.

Arriving in Cornwall in the 1950s with his long-time friend, colleague and partner Michael Truscott, John's architectural skills were immediately put to use in the re-design and adaptations made to the Newlyn Art Gallery. His style in painting changed dramatically over time, from early figurative landscapes of great beauty and detail to later abstract sea and landscapes of vivid blocks of colour depicting the horizon where the sea meets the sky.

An extensive collection of his work was donated by his estate, after his death in 2002, to be housed in the Sunrise Centre at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, 15 of which are illustrated in the Public Foundation Catalogue review of work by artists held in public collections (pp165-7). All of the illustrated works are untitled and represent his style in later life.

John was a lay canon at Truro Cathedral, and the creator of the large mural painting there: Cornubia-Land of the Saints.

His work was extremely popular, and he had many imitators. It was not unusual to find a John Miller seascape on the back wall of a soap show such as Coronation Street, or a china mug at a local coffee shop.
Cornwall Artists Index

Bob Bourne was born in Exmouth, Devon and was evacuated as a child during the war years to Bermuda. His schooling was undertaken back in England at Brighton. Bob had a variety of working environments in West Cornwall and elsewhere, including a spell in Perth, Australia.

Primarily a self-taught painter, Cross considered Bourne's paintings in his chapter on 'realism, imagination and fantasy' artists, the combination of qualities and styles that Bob employed in his vivid and intense pieces.

A major solo show was held at Belgrave St Ives in 2011 to celebrate Bob Bourne's 80th birthday: 'Bourne at Eighty'.
Cornwall Artists Index

His painting, Penzance from Chyandour 2000, is held in the public collection of Penlee House Museum in Penzance. Another painting by Vigg, of Trevean Cliffs 1993 is in the art collection of the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust.

Bob Vigg was born in the West of England and lived at Botallack near St Just in Penwith. With a limited palette and an 'army of brushes', he worked quickly to capture and interpret the rapidly changing weather and seasons of land, sea and sky in that far western promontory that is the Land's End. He exhibited often and widely in the West Country and has work in private collections internationally. His solo shows were always very popular with the collector and the public.
Cornwall Artists Index

Margo Maeckelberghe, who has died aged 81, was a painter of Cornwall's landforms and coastlines. In capturing the drama of the Penwith peninsula as it faces the Atlantic her work provided a response to artistic challenges faced by the generation of artists who grew up in the wake of the pioneering modernist figures associated with postwar St Ives and Newlyn. Maeckelberghe found her voice by emphasising her rootedness in the landscape of west Penwith, its weather, its colour, its forms and spaces.

She was born Margo Try in Penzance, where she grew up and lived for most of her life. For many years her studio was a cottage on the ridge at the top of the moors between Penzance and Zennor, which was the actual and metaphoric centre of her vision.

She studied in her teens at Penzance School of Art, a thriving school that benefited from teaching by artists in the local community. Margo enjoyed repeating the story that her teacher at Penzance, Bouverie Hoyton, was horrified that, aged 17, she chose to study at Bath Academy of Art at its postwar home of Corsham Court in Wiltshire rather than at the Slade in London, where she had also been offered a place.

Corsham had become an important centre for the visual arts in Britain. Its principal, Clifford Ellis, appointed artists of stature to head its specialist courses; the head of painting was William Scott. Rigorous study of the key building blocks of painting was emphasised, but new values and a sense of currency with the wider, burgeoning modern art scene was created by visiting tutors.

These included many from the modern art community in Cornwall, such as Bryan Wynter, Terry Frost and Peter Lanyon. Lanyon was a particularly important influence. While at Corsham (1949-52), Margo was therefore able to connect her Cornish roots with the new painting language being formed by people who were to become her mentors.

After Corsham, Margo taught art at Kingswood comprehensive school in London, and met and married Willy Maeckelberghe. Willy came from a Belgian family but had grown up in London, and was training there as a doctor. Margo left teaching on the birth of her son, Paul, in 1954. Willy's military service as a young doctor led to travel for the family, including a posting in Gibraltar. When their second child, a daughter, Nico, was born in 1958, Willy went into general practice in Penzance. This allowed Margo to immerse herself again in the places where she had grown up.

From then on she dedicated herself to painting. Her imagery remained that of the landscape. Her work took on a linear structure, informed by the abstraction of her teachers and mentors, but not evolving into the purer formal and associative language for which they had become known. Instead she based her images on structure in the landscape.

Sweeping lines blew over the blues and greens of horizons, slopes and cliff edges. Extended Landscape (1969) encapsulates the imagery of the central phase of her work, while Westward Scilly (1987) shows her work becoming softer, her hues deeper, in part as a reaction to the extraordinary sense of space and intense light experienced in her forays to the Isles of Scilly.

She became prominent in artists' organisations. She was involved with the Newlyn Society of Artists throughout her career, showed with the Penwith Society from 1961 onwards, and became its chair in 1997. Her straddling of the modern art community and the world of traditional Cornish culture was represented by her becoming a bard of the Cornish Gorsedd (1997), taking the name Lymner: the Cornish for "painter".

Despite her prominence in exhibitions in Cornwall and beyond, she sometimes felt that the perception of her work suffered from being neither in the canon of the leading figures who dominated her early career, nor part of the revision of what it meant to be an artist from Cornwall that developed after the Tate's 1985 survey, St Ives 1939-64, in which her work was not included.

But in 2008, Extended Landscape, perhaps the most significant exhibition of her paintings, was mounted at Tate St Ives. This allowed a wide audience to see the Cornish landscape through her eyes and to celebrate the work of a dynamic woman.

Willy died in 2007. Margo is survived by Paul and Nico, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren
Guardian Obituary 31/1/2014

Born in 1933 in Northamptonshire. Jeremy King studied at Lancaster and Morecambe College of Art. After national service , he taught at Haymill secondary school Art , 3D design and pottery between the years 1958 - 67.

He later left teaching to focus on being a full time artist and worked in ateliers in Spain ,Paris and at Curwen studio. In 1976 Jeremy moved to Port Isaac Cornwall with his Wife and three children , shortly after relocating to the Cornish art hub of St . Ives.

He has showed work at the Royal academy and has his work in the Tate print collection.
The Tyler Gallery

Brenda King was born in Cumbria. She studied at Lancaster College of Art from 1950 to 1954 and at the Royal College of Art from 1954 to 1957. Whilst living near London she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. In the 1960s and 70s she had regular shows in the South East before moving to Cornwall in 1975.

Brenda’s paintings are in the faux-naïve style that found many followers in the late twentieth century in West Cornwall. The composition of a table-top with crockery in front of window looking out on a coastal scene echoes a famous painting by Ben Nicholson in the 1940s. Her style is strongly influenced by the Bristol-born artist Mary Fedden OBE (1915-2012). Brenda’s paintings have been exhibited widely in recent years, across the West Country as well as internationally, as far afield as Tokyo.

The late artist wife of Jeremy KING. The couple had their working studios at St Just, and Brenda exhibited locally in galleries such as the Rainyday Gallery in Penzance, as well as much further afield.
Cornwall Artists Index

As an apprentice engineer in the Black Country, Nigel Hallard was surrounded by the sights, smells and sounds of the industry on which the area was built, the heat from the roaring furnaces, the flying sparks, the aroma of molten metal being poured from one container to another as if it were a jug of milk. But it was only when he moved to the idyllic Cornish fishing village of Mousehole that he appreciated the artistic beauty of what he left behind.

As a young man, trying to carve out a living at West Bromwich’s Brockhouse Drop Forge in the 1960s, it would never have occurred to him that people in Cornwall would want to buy paintings of his brutal surroundings. And he would certainly never have guessed that one of his works would be displayed by a future Prime Minister in his home at 10 Downing Street.

Nigel, who had also lived in Great Bridge and Dudley, moved to Cornwall in 1969 after falling in love with a local girl while on holiday. “I was on holiday in Cornwall, and I met a friend of mine who was originally from Dudley, and he invited me to stay with him for a bit,” he recalled in a 2013 interview with the Express & Star. “He said ‘I have got this girlfriend who won’t come out without her mate’, so I agreed to go out with them, it was a blind date. I married her a year later.”

Realising that his chances of finding a job in engineering were limited in his new home, he decided to become a landscape painter, selling paintings of the Cornish seascape to visiting tourists. For some years this provided him with a living, but as the traditional industries of the Black Country began to disappear in the 1980s, he started returning home to capture the region’s changing landscape on canvas.

His paintings quickly built up a following, attracting a number of high-profile commissions. Former Prime Minister Sir John Major displayed one of his paintings – inside his old workplace at the Brockhouse drop forge – on the walls at Downing Street, while another was on show at the old Transport & General Workers’ Union offices in West Bromwich.

During the 1980s and 90s, Nigel held regular art exhibitions around the West Midlands, at venues such as the Stone Manor Hotel in Kidderminster and the former Moat House Hotel in West Bromwich.

One year he wanted to borrow the prime minister’s painting of Brockhouse for a Royal Society of Arts exhibition at the Adelphi buildings in the Strand. “I spoke to the Prime Minister’s wife, and she offered to bring the painting to me, but I wanted to go to Downing Street to pick it up. I didn’t meet John Major, but I had a chat with his wife. The painting had been presented to him by the Chamber of Commerce, and it was on display in his flat.”

Nigel became a familiar sight around the Cornish coastline capturing the scenery, he said it was the industrial landscapes that particularly appealed as there were not many people who did them.

He said he was particularly fond of his paintings of the former Royal Brierley glassworks in Brierley Hill, which has since closed. “I have done one of somebody changing the kiln. That is something that is gone forever now, it is part of our history.”

In 1989 he bought a second studio in Dinan, Brittany.

Nigel, who regularly returned to the West Midlands to check out his old haunts, said people failed to appreciate the potential of Black Country industry, or its importance to the economy.

“We’re still big engineers in the world, there’s a lot of engineering going on but we don’t get to hear about it,” he said in 2013. “When you had the big steel works at Round Oak, if you went in the pub at lunchtime the men would be in there, they would drink eight or nine pints just to replace the fluids they lost, they were big characters. You don’t see blokes walking down the street in their flat caps any more, but we’re still the fifth largest manufacturing country in the world, it’s just that people don’t know about it. They’ve been brainwashed.”

Nigel, who leaves widow Mary and son John, died in hospital on May 4.

Widow Mary said: “He was a tremendous character and had a marvellous career, he was very passionate about his work.”

Photographer Graham Gough, from Kinver, had known him for many years. “He was a lovely man and a great artist,” he said.
Obituary: Wolverhampton Express & Star (22/5/2020)

Lewis Mitchell was born in Penzance.

The Western Morning News in a review (2006) commented that 'He is self-taught, and his landscape paintings are pure colour with an eye for detail, with the paint carefully applied in an obsessive manner. His pictures are often fantastical, with ships, aeroplanes and balloons passing through the Cornish landscape.'

His work has been exhibited at a number of galleries in Cornwall and further afield. His paintings have also been shown in Denmark and France.
Cornwall Artists Index

Mary Stork was born in Portsmouth, and studied at the West of England College, where her primary tutor was Paul FEILER. She studied further at the Slade School of Art, London, where she won major awards, and her paintings were toured with the Arts Council Young Contemporaries. At the Slade she met and married the West Cornwall artist Jeremy Le GRICE, and they returned to the county to live at St Just.

Here in Cornwall she met Karl WESCHKE who she credited with great influence on her work, and in 1966 the Hiltons arrived nearby. Mary and Rose HILTON became the closest of friends. Both of them abandoned art in the face of family responsibilities for many years. When Mary remarried after the break-up of her first marriage, she brought up her family in nearby Porthleven.

In 1982 she re-started painting professionally, and showing her work in small galleries including the Rainyday Gallery in Penzance. Mary became a member of the Penwith Society of Arts and also of the NSA. Meantime, she returned to live in St Just when her second husband died. Finally she moved into Penzance, living in the town centre and continuing to produce a steady stream of distinctive work, mainly mixed media (watercolour and charcoal) figurative pieces, much collected.
Cornwall Artists Index

Gill Watkiss was born in 1938 and studied at the Walthamstow School of Art where she was taught by Edward Middleditch, one of the 'kitchen sink' group of artists. With her late husband, the artist and author Reg Watkiss, Gill moved to Cornwall in 1959. First to Mousehole, then to various parts of West Penwith, including Zennor, St Just, and Newlyn. In 1969 Gill moved to a house at Cape Cornwall, St. Just; a move that Gill later recalled was to become a major turning point in her development as an artist. Gill found inspiration in the people and places around the market town of St Just and Cape Cornwall – part of the Heritage Coastline and only a short distance from Land’s End. She captured the wind-blown streets of St Just and stoic resistance and vitality of its inhabitants. Gill is also one of a long line of artists to have benefitted from, and expressed in her work, the distinct light to be found in this far west peninsula.
Cornwall Artists

For many years Gill Watkiss lived on the north coast of the Penwith peninsula, where it reaches out into the Atlantic, the nearest landfall after the Scilly Isles being America and where prevailing winds blow from the west. It is a world away from the picture postcards, the surfing beaches and the theme parks. This is the Cornwall of the "tin coast", of the mining villages with their terraces of granite cottages, of a people whose real memorial are ruined "castles", the engine houses of dead industry. A coast where miners work a mile out under the bed of the Atlantic and where they could hear the granite boulders grinding above thier heads; an industry which buried their young men two-deep in the churchyard at St. Just.

It is also a place where the light is such that it has drawn artists to it now for well over a hundred years and where it is impossible to be unaware of either the landscape or the weather. The weather is rarely still in this place of granite and moorland beneath what the poet A.E. Housman describes as yon "twelve- minded sky".

The weather is an ever-constant pervading presence in the paintings of Gill Watkiss. The figures shopping in the square in the market town of St Just, or walking up the lane from Cape Cornwall, strain against the sea wind. The same wind whips a bride's veil above her head or causes a headscarf to fly like a flag. Head down, a woman battles into the rain behind her umbrella, two small girls clutch each other to avoid being blown away.

Although men also figure in her paintings, the overall impression is of a celebration of women and of women as survivors. They are not idealised figures , these women of the towns and villages of Cornwall, they are the real thing. Sturdy, independent, often strong featured, they face life as they face the elements. In them colour blazes against the stormy skies, the windswept landscapes and the small grey cottages: colour in a scarlet scarf or red lips, a brightly coloured dress, a deep blue coat, in the flower in the hair of a young girl in a white blouse. The eyes of the strong-faced women, as they carry their shopping or meet their children from school, look out on the world with knowledge, sometimes with resignation, sometimes with humour and always with experience."I've been there" says the artist, pointing to a woman standing waiting at a school gate, "and there", at a woman shepherding a clutch of children along a lane.

The face of the young girls might look ready for adventure, but older women know what life is about. While they may struggle to make ends meet, have known that their marriages bear precious little resemblance to the romantic novels they carry back from the library, and find that even at the beginning of this twenty-first century the bearing and bringing up of children is exhausting, they remain undefeated. They are foursquare and solid, not the creatures of the magazine fantasy, but always their bodies move both with, and against, the weather, full of movement, light on their feet.

Gill Watkiss also loves painting snow, something of a rarity in the far west. When it falls, she makes the most of it. A house built of strange black slate found in the north of the county stands out stark against a snow-filled landscape where a small boy pulls another on a sledge. The house haunts almost obsesses her in this rare white landscape.

She paints it again and again. Snow acts as a seachange to townscapes, public parks, transforms the ordinary into a frozen world from which the women and children escape back to their warm houses, where the colour of a coat, a scarf, a hat stand out jewel-like against the white.She paints the small festivals, the weddings, the family celebrations, the feast days, the ordinary stuff of life, going to school, sports day, blackberry picking, but always that life is outdoors, of people living, working and having their being in the landscape which made them. You cannot escape from a sense of place.
Judith Cook: Extract from 'Gill Watkiss Painting 1974 - 2002'

Born in 1941 from a long line of Mousehole luggermen, Michael Praed was educated at Penzance and Falmouth School of Art followed by Brighton College of Art. Before working full-time as an artist, and he also taught painting and drawing in Penzance for nearly thirty years, retiring from teaching in 1993 to concentrate full-time on painting. He is a member of both the Newlyn and Penwith Societies of Art and former chairman of the Newlyn Society of Artists. As one of Cornwall’s most recognised artists, Michael Praed is known for his paintings of coves, cliffs, harbours and boats of the county and surrounding area. His work has been extensively exhibited around the UK and reflects his deep affection for Cornwall and its heritage. Michael’s work can be recognised by its characteristic subject matter, colours and structure. The use of contrasts is a reoccurring theme, which is a theme he considers to be central to his work. He often uses warm colours next to cold tones along with sharp lines of harbour masts next to rounded coves and boat hulls. His most consistent theme is that of the Cornish landscape.
Penwith Gallery and Beyond the Sea Gallery, Perranporth

Joan Speight is a successful landscape artist who lives and works in Marazion.

She started painting originally as a hobby when first arrived in Cornwall and was encouraged by her tutor, Mercedes Smith, to take her paintings to the local galleries including this one!!

She works primarily in oils, occasionally in acrylics, and usually takes her inspiration from the views of West Cornwall, Mount’s Bay, the Penzance hillside and the wild windblown trees and hedgerows along the Cornish coast.
Market House Gallery, Penzance

Strang worked from his home studio at Gulval near Penzance, and was a prolific landscape and floral painter and exhibitor. His paintings, St Ives Storm (c1992-97) and Towards Penzance, Twilight Mount's Bay 18 October, 1997, are both in the Penlee House Collection, Penzance. His paintings are often large, with paint thickly laid.

He exhibited widely and many of his paintings were acquired by private and public collections. One of his drawings, 'Auntie Marie's Last Sleep' is included in the Ashmolean collection, and his oil painting of St Martin-in-the-Fields now hangs on permanent display in the vicarage of the James Gibb-designed church which dominates the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square.

In 2006 'Cosmic Landscapes : Works inspired by G F Watts' was held at the Watts Gallery in Surrey. In this exhibition, Michael's paintings hung alongside those of Watts, who was dubbed 'England's Michelangelo' and widely lauded as one of the greatest Victorian painters.

He held solo exhibitions in Fowey, at The Cry of the Gull Galleries and at the Falmouth Art Gallery, and participated in group exhibitions around Cornwall, in London, Wales and the USA. Three of his paintings are held in the permanent collection of the Cornwall Council (Education).

Michael Strang died in Truro on 6th April 2021.
Cornwall Artists Index

I spent the first 18 years of my life on the coast of West Sussex and Hampshire, and very early on I developed an abiding passion for Art and Nature.

Winter evenings were spent in my grandparent's room, copying my Uncle's drawings or sketching any item of interest. In the summertime I spent my days around the marshes or Chichester harbour or in the woodland on the South Downs studying, drawing and painting the landscape and its wildlife.

Upon leaving school I secured a place at the West Sussex College of Art in Worthing, studying commercial art and technical illustration. Whilst travelling to college each day by train I was fascinated by the prints of landscape paintings mounted below the luggage racks. From the comfort of the train seats I found myself drifting to places unknown to me—the hills of Cumbria, the lakes, coastal resorts and cathedrals all beautifully painted by prominent figurative artists.

Some self proclaimed art critic of today would decry Illustration or Illustrative Art as meaningless and not real Art — it's just as well that attitude did not exist when the Sistine Chapel ceiling was commissioned as an illustration of the Bible!

Upon leaving College I worked as a technical illustrator for many years, but at night I painted a variety of subjects—vintage racing cars, landscapes, seascapes and abstract painting.

I moved to Cornwall in 1972 and managed a variety of businesses and art became a spare time hobby. Exploring Cornwall from the rocky moors to towering cliffs, green shaded valleys and stormy seas, and the influence of the Cornish light with its ever changing moods came as a revelation to me. This small peninsular of land afloat on a mirror of sea reflecting the light, inspired my appetite to paint.

In 1990 after a health scare I, like many others before me suddenly arrived at one of life's crossroads, and so I took the decision to become a full-time artist. Within two years I had agreed to work with an agent whilst building a reputation as a Wildlife and Marine Artist.

For me Art, and in my case painting, is about communication — to present whatever I paint in such a way as to hold the viewer's attention, for them to see what I see in a new light and experience emotion whether positive or negative.

A great photographer friend of mine once said to me “The worst response I can have to my work is no response at all”.

Whilst continuing to paint wildlife in a figurative manner I have recently become absorbed with trying to portray the limitless variations of landscapes and seascapes in smaller impressionist paintings in acrylic and oil paint.

For me, all my art is based on drawing and from here I can progress, and express everything I want to communicate of my love of the natural world and all its wonders.

I want my art to be enjoyed, a window to a wonderful world, just as the painters who have influenced me have done—Monet, Landseer, Raymond Ching, Ken Howard, Peter Brown and many others.
stephen cummins.com

Growing up on the Cornish coast at Newquay, Robert attended Cornwall Technical College and the Redruth School of Art before studying art at Falmouth, when there were only 65 students in total at the Art College. At that time, all of the tutors and staff were painters and sculptors, and he was greatly influenced by Francis HEWLETT and Robert ORGAN. A goodly range of studies, jobs, travels and marriage followed, with Robert meeting his future wife in Manchester College of Art, where lack of finance curtailed his studies. From there the couple spent months in Israel on a kibbutz, some time in Brighton, followed up by a teaching post at the famous Summerhill School (with A S Neill as head).

Returning to Cornwall on the birth of their first child, Robert took up fishing and crabbing as an occupation, with painting lurking in the foreground as to how he saw his future. His first solo show in Penzance in 1987 was followed by a solo exhibition at NAG in 1988, and Robert Jones, the painter, was well launched. His work has also been shown at the Rainyday Gallery, Penzance. In 1995 a series of his paintings was included in the Tate St Ives exhibition 'Porthmeor Beach, A Century of Images'. Jones is a regular exhibitor at Tregony Gallery on the Roseland peninsula.

Latterly his part-time teaching commitments continued at both Penzance School of Art and Falmouth College of Art to sustain a living, but increasingly he was able to achieve the favourable position of full-time painting and writing. See FIRST LIGHT GALLERY website for Cornish artists and books published by Jones. He is both a writer and a visual artist, and excels at both.

Tom CROSS, in his excellent magazine review of contemporary artists in Cornwall, Catching the Wave, comments 'RJ belongs to a long line of sea painters working in Cornwall, a tradition that goes back to the mid-nineteenth century.... he has made the sea his subject.'
Cornwall Artists Index

Chris Thompson was born in Surrey, and studied at both the Kingston School of Art and the Royal College of Art. At the BBC he worked as a production designer for more than a decade, before going free-lance in the world of film production.
Cornwall Artists Index
He paints in acrylic on canvas. The inspiration for his paintings is the unique landscapes and the special quality of the Cornish light.
Chris Thompson website

Beryl Langsworthy was born in Shropshire. She declined a place at Manchester School of Art in favour of remaining self-taught. Her affinity with animals led to commissions to paint many breeds of dogs, cats and horses. In 1988 Beryl Langsworthy moved to the Isles of Scilly where she developed the skill of creating free blown studio glass.
Cornwall Artists Index

Annie Ovenden was privately educated at The Royal Wanstead School and from there, in 1961 went on to study at High Wycombe School of Art, gaining NDD in book illustration and graphic design in 1965. She worked as a graphic designer and painter in London for several years before moving to Cornwall in 1973.

In 1975 Sir Peter Blake asked her to join a group of seven like minded artists, the group was subsequently called The Brotherhood of Ruralists. The Ruralist’s first public showing as a unified entity took place at the Royal Academy in 1976 followed by the Bath Festival in 1977. From these showings until 2007 the Ruralists maintained a vigorous exhibition program. In 1981 a major exhibition of work by the Ruralists - presented, not so much as a retrospective, but more as a report on work-in-progress - was organised by The Arnolfini, Bristol and The Camden Arts Centre, London. Funded by The Arts Council of Great Britain, the exhibition included visits to Birmingham City Museum & The Third Eye, Glasgow. The Ruralists final show together was at Horsham Museum in 2007. In 2008, a major touring exhibition was organised by Southampton University on the English Pastoral Tradition subtitled From Samuel Palmer to the Ruralists.

Annie Ovenden taught for seventeen years for North Cornwall’s Adult Education Service. She has had many solo exhibitions and was an Honorary member of the South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. She has recently been elected to the St. Ives Society of Artists. She has designed theatre sets and props. For four years she worked with London’s Hampstead Garden Opera creating sets for The Magic Flute, Hansel and Gretel, La Traviata and Martha.

Despite Channel 4’s repeated showings of a film about her Village Portrait Project she is probably best known for her tree studies and paintings depicting the landscape of Cornwall where she lives. Her work is in many private collections worldwide and appears in various publications.
Annie Ovenden website

Geoffrey Huband was born in Worcestershire in 1945, and studied at Stourbridge College of Art and at Manchester University. As a student in the 1960’s, he came to admire painters of the Newlyn School, who depicted day-to-day subjects in the fishing villages of Cornwell, as well as Montagu Dawson for his “style and directness.”

After a spell teaching, he moved to Cornwall in 1970 to paint full-time; its rugged coastline has inspired his marine paintings throughout a career that has seen him commissioned by collectors worldwide and his paintings included in numerous private collections.

He was employed by “Warner Brothers” as a Concept Artist on the feature film Harry Potter 4 “The Goblet of Fire” where he conceived and designed the “Durmstrang Ship”. His work has been commissioned by “National Geographic” He has also been the featured artist in “Classic Boats”, “Traditional Boats and Tall Ships” as well as “Shipwright International Annual of Maritime History” In 2017 he was employed by Universal at Shepperton Studios as concept artist on the feature film "The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle".

Huband has exhibited in the UK and Spain also with the Royal Society of Marine Artists, The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, The Royal Institute of Water Colour Artists and with Mystic Seaport Gallery, Connecticut since 2002. His most recent awards have been The “Award of Excellence” from the Maritime Gallery, Mystic Seaport in 2009 and the “Conway Maritime Award” from the RSMA in 2012. Larger images are available on request.

Geoffrey Huband works mainly to commission. If you would like to acquire a painting by this brilliant and highly-regarded marine artist, depicting a historical or fictional subject of your choice, please contact Julian Thomas. Art Marine has over twenty years of experience in commissioning marine art, and we ensure an enjoyable and rewarding experience for our clients.

Huband states of his work: "Visually I am intrigued by the abstracted qualities of maritime painting. The solidity of hulls, the apparent delicacy of masts and spars, the fragile beauty of sails billowing or revealing the form of the masts as they are blown aback. I enjoy the ordered tracery of rigging seen as a bold statement against the bright sky. My interest in maritime painting is excited as much by the physical appearance of ships as it is by the romance that time and history have endowed upon the subject. I am interested in ships for their beauty as well as for their functional qualities, and I am fascinated by the ingenuity that has been displayed in their construction and development since earliest times. The focus of my interest centers between 1700-1800, a period I regard as the peak of achievement in the combination of function and beauty in ships as well as architecture."
Art Marine

Originally from Yorkshire most of my life has been spent living in London where my wife and I raised our three children. I took up painting full time when I moved to Cornwall twelve years ago having visited the county regularly during the past 30 years. I am for the most part self-taught although I have learnt a great deal from attending short courses in various parts of the country including a longer stint of eight months on a weekly basis at the West London studio of St Martins School of Art tutor and artist Mike Major. I have been fortunate to gain first hand expertise and knowledge with other brilliant artists such as Kenneth Denton in Norfolk, Ray Balkwill in Devon, Neil Pinkett, Paul Lewin, Alice Mumford in Cornwall and Joseph Zbukvic in France.

I paint Marine and Landscapes in Oils, Watercolor and Mixed Media. Whenever possible I am out in all weathers painting Plein Air as I find that this mostly requires a fast and spontaneous approach in trying to capture a feeling for the subject and the prevailing atmosphere. I often sketch and photograph the subject for finishing any detailed work in the studio.
Stewart Kent website

John Piper moved to Cornwall when he was still at school, from Salisbury where he was born. His paintings are of the landscape and its dramatic features in his adopted country, and his work is widely shown and collected.

His painting, Moorland Cottages (2004) is held by Penlee House, Penzance. John is one of the group of artists who contribute regularly to the collections and exhibitions held at Gallery Tresco, on the Isles of Scilly. In general he visits to paint on the Islands during the winter months. He is also a regular exhibitor at Tregony Gallery on the Roseland peninsula.
Cornwall Artists Index

Born Marshfield in the Cotswolds 1946 – Adrian trained at the West of England College of Art, Interior Design Department, studying Heraldry. Interior Design and Calligraphy. He has exhibited at a number of Galleries including the Royal Society of Marine Artists, The Mall London.

Adrian has also had a life long-time interest in Long case antique dial restoration and has also exhibited his paintings at the Penzance Arts Club, Morvah School House, St Elwyn’s Church, Hayle, The Roundhouse and Capstan Gallery, Just Fine Arts, St Just, Out of the Blue Gallery, Marazion, Davison – Thomas Fine Arts, Penzance and the Lander Gallery Truro. A former civil servant now retired, he describes his work as “exciting – painting seascapes and landscapes in an Impressionist/abstract style encapsulating Cornish light and life whilst still maintaining the originality of the subject”. The development of his artistic style has taken place over many years. It has now become more fully established since moving to Cornwall and being able to concentrate “full time” on painting. Adrian lives at Tremorran, Botallack near St Just with his partner and three cats in a former tin mine Captain’s House where he has as open studio. Largely self taught in regard to his ‘painting’ he has a wide and diverse experience of life. His paintings have sold consistently of late. A signwriter, gilder, calligrapher restorer, now concentrating as an “en plein air artist” painting pictures without the constraints of financial concerns or other pre-occupations. .
Adrian Smith website

Born in Plymouth in 1947. After leaving school, Richard Blowey studied at Plymouth School of Art. After a short time on the east coast of England he returned to the South west in the late 1960's.Taking all sorts of jobs from farming to fishing he still kept up his art as a hobby but found his work was becoming more in demand and this prompted him to concentrate on art as his profession.
Cornwall Galleries

Andrew was born in Bombay, India and grew up there, the first son of Bunny and Bunty Watts. At the age of 7 he was sent back to England where he attended St George's College at Weybridge, Surrey. He completed the pre-Diploma course in Art at Guildford School of Art and studied graphic design in Paris then fine art drawing in Madrid.

Qualifying in advertising and marketing he worked for a number of leading advertising agencies in the 1960s. In the 1970s he left London with his family to settle in Salcombe, Devon, founding the Smokehouse in Dartmouth. In the 1990s he spread his wings and painted full time, exhibiting in France and Palma Mallorca. Since then, he has painted widely in France, Spain, Australia, South Africa, Germany and the English West Country. His work is reflected as a Diary of his travels and experiences. He now lives and works in St Buryan near Penzance, Cornwall. (2015)
Cornwall Artist Index

Educated: School Kent College Canterbury Kent.
Higher Education: University of Amsterdam, Early printing Incunabula and Bibliography. 1971-74. 1993-2000 University of Nottingham outreach art courses.
Painting in Cornwall 2006 – present
Antiquarian book and manuscript collector: Cambridge 1967-71 and Guildford 1973-76.
Travelled extensively in the Middle East and India 1977-78.
Self-employed in antiquarian book trade 1978- 2010 selling books and manuscripts mainly by mail order and at fairs.
2009 to date. Teaching adult east Europeans in Cornwall in small groups and on a one to one basis.
2010-2011 teaching children in Albania on summer schools.
Painting: "from 2006 I have been painting and drawing and exhibiting at the Bath Academy, Galleries in Cornwall and at Craft Fairs. I like to paint harbours and seascapes from our garden and the harbor walls – particularly St. Ives, Mousehole and Mevagissey. I enjoyed painting when young starting again because of the inspiration of Cornwall and the studio at home.
British Naïves

Cornish artist Richard Lodey became a professional painter in 1993. Inspired by the modern British art movement which included the likes of Hepworth, Wallis, Pearce and Nicholson, he painted the villages and towns of Cornwall in distinctive bright, flat colours.
For the Love of Art

I am a graduate of Falmouth School of Art & Design where I studied Graphic Design. I am currently living and working in the historic town of Lostwithiel.

The inspiration for my paintings comes mainly from Cornwall's amazing coastline and it's many moods, particularly around Gribbin Head on the South coast.

I worked for some years as a book Illustrator and then as a Photo-realist painter so my natural style tends to be quite realistic. Althouh, my current paintings seem to be a departure from this and appear rather abstract, they are in fact quite tight and realistic due to the rarely noticed delineated natural of the patterns on water.

I work in Oil on Canvas but usually on occasionally gesso-coated wood panels.

I have worked for major British, American and European book publishers, illustrating educational books. I have worked on private and commercial mural projects in the United States, Australia and Asia and my paintings are in private collections world-wide.
Alan Weston website

Richard Lannowe Hall moved to Cornwall in 1996 pursuing his joint passions for sailing and painting seascapes. A student of light and its transformative effect upon water, Hall ably sustains the tradition of impressionist painting of Cornwall's famous coast and unique light. The dramatic manner in which he captures the sea and north coast light, whilst very different, echoes the same fascination and fearlessness that we see in the work of Julius Olsson a century earlier.

Hall studied at Guildford College of Art, North East London College of Art and the Royal Academy of Art, before settling in Cornwall where he has exhibited regularly.
Cornish Artists

Alan Furneaux was born in London in 1953. Artists such as Frost, Hitchens, Nicholson, Matisse, Klee, Picasso, Braque, to name but a few, were all early influences of his art. However, at the age of 14, he was greatly influenced by the English painter, Patrick Heron, for his simple and direct approach. Alan left Secondary Modern School at 17 and went to Reigate School of Art for two years, although he did not make art his career until much later.

In 1985, Alan Furneaux moved to Brighton, finding rooms near George Hann’s studio. George (who was his grandfather) was an established artist and the two men formed a mutual friendship based on discussions about Jack Kerouac, George’s life as a painter, and art in general.
Primrose Gallery Also
Alan Furneaux website

Born in the W Midlands, Steve was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School. He left at 16 with eight O-Levels including art. At the age of 17, he had two terms of painting tuition with John MILLER. Self-educated from that time, he was employed by the civil service, then as a railway clerk. At 25 Steve became self-employed, beginning his painting career in earnest. He began selling his work in St. Ives in 1979 with Keith English. His paintings became more widely known in Cornwall and beyond. In 2009 his work was included in National UK Art A-Level syllabus, for students to study with regard to use of light.

Steve enjoys working alone, but he also paints collaboratively with Vincent RYMER. He is a regular exhibitor at Tregony Gallery on the Roseland peninsula.
Cornwall Artists Index

The landscape expressionist painter Steve Slimm has been through some major life-changes these past 12 months, to say the least. Following the death of his long-term partner in August 2016, he has been blessed with a new relationship this year, which apparently threatens to take him away from Cornwall. His planned move to Devon will not, however, mean the end of his Cornish connection, with his studio near Praa Sands remaining active, and many galleries showcasing his acclaimed landscapes.

Over the past three decades the name ‘Steve Slimm’ has become synonymous with a deep connection to the natural environment. His paintings, although not instantly obvious, breathe the essence of archaic Cornwall – of the moors, the coast, of the ancient tracts of land before we arrived in force to both populate and, for better or worse, leave our footprint. “One thing is for sure”, Steve muses, “we have changed things; it’s what we do. And yet the essence of the land remains the same – unchanged, and unchangeable. A bit like ourselves really.” It is of our human connection to our unchangeable planet, that Steve’s work speaks. Through his artwork, Steve uses paint to tell of an ideal world of harmony. The horizon is rarely distinct, but rather a misty, even mystical, merging of land and sky. His work leads viewers toward feeling safe, with feet firmly on the ground, whilst at the same time soaring toward the light. In this way, his work has proved inspirational to many an aspiring artist through the years.

If you are looking for detailed topographical interest, though, in Steve’s own words: “I’m afraid you can forget it! I have no wish to tell you what a place looks like, I want to tell you how I feel about what I see – what I experience. By doing this, I somehow know I am reminding you, the viewer, of how you feel about it, about the unchangeable in all of us; and how our connection to the land is somehow part of this. That’s all I wish to say; and if this invokes connectedness – then I’m happy.”
Cornwall Living #62

Having endured an extended period of unprecedented isolation and uncertainty, most of us are now sensing the light relief of being out and about again, doing the things we love. Reconnecting with ‘in-the-flesh’ art is certainly close to the heart of many and the annual Cornwall Open Studio event provides the ideal opportunity. This year, Steve Slimm is opening his studio for the first time since 2011, from 29th August to 6th September. What’s more, he is especially excited to be launching his brand new artbook: Beyond the Reach of the City – We Have Dreamed of a Place.

The publication comes in response to the inordinate interest in his series of calendars, in collaboration with us here at Cornwall Living, featuring transcendent artwork alongside sensitive snippets of verse. One client expressed her appreciation this way: “My daughter gave me your calendar for Christmas and it truly touches me. Your paintings are how my soul feels. Never has an artist’s work moved me in such a way. It brings tears to my eyes, very good ones . . . Thank you for your beautiful contribution to this world. You make me smile.”

The 40-page hardback book combines stunning images with some poignantly profound poetic text, creating a hauntingly beautiful experience to lift the spirit out of any dregs of despondency. Steve will be personally signing all copies purchased during the Open Studios event.

“This place wants to hold me here, disempowered – as if all power lies in the past, therefore now unattainable.” This quote from Steve’s poem, ‘This Place’, so aptly describes how many of us have felt at times during the recent lockdown. His life’s work over the past two decades has been very much about using trauma to inspire transformation, mastery and positive change. His personal life during those years contained much grist to the mill of adversity, including the passing of a life partner in 2016. But the light of transcendence is ultimately never far behind in any of his work – whether expressed through paint, music or verse.

This year sees a large area of Steve’s rambling rustic studio near Praa Sands devoted to an inspiring multi-sensory experience: Transcending the Constraints of Reality. Showcasing his most transcendent recent original artwork, together with soundscape improvisations and elevating poetry, the emphasis will be squarely on the meditative quality that tends to have eluded most of us of late, making it an opportunity to reconnect with life through a unique spiritual approach to the ancient land of Cornwall. It’s sure to be an unforgettable experience.
Cornwall Living #99

An artist to inspire artists, Steve Slimm’s visionary work over the past 40 years has gained him the reputation, in Cornwall and the UK, of a master of expressionist landscape painting. Since 2009 his work has been featured in national UK art foundation syllabuses for its quality of light. With a particular genius for inspiring artists toward greater freedom of expression, Steve is regularly invited to share his innovative skills with Cornish amateur art groups. For inspiration he predominantly takes the evocative Cornish landscape and coastline. His atmospheric pieces, often bordering on the mystical, have been collected and treasured by art collectors for almost four decades. Steve is also a musician, poet, writer and mentor. He currently lives with his partner in the idyllic Cornish hamlet of Colenso Cross. He says of his creativity:

When I begin to create something new, I rarely have much idea what I’m actually doing. I suppose what’s gone before informs the handwriting, therefore dictates style to some extent. As with my free-form improvising in music and writing, my painting develops organically – and can often change dramatically before the final piece emerges. It’s a subliminal process for me and, I like to think, allows place for the sublime mystery to come through. So it can surprise and enthral me as often as it does someone else.
Artists in Cornwall

I was born in Newlyn in 1955. Following my local schooling I continued my interest in Pottery and Art and studied at Penzance Art School.

I walk the coast with my husband Geoffrey who carves birds, he is always on the lookout for driftwood for his sculptures, and I usually find something of interest to paint. West Penwith has the most incredible light; the beaches and hedgerows around this area with the changing seasons never fail to give inspiration.

I paint with watercolour, acrylic and oil. I also like to paint scenes from the Isles of Scilly, the Islands lift you to another level, where the white beaches and colourful dramatic scenery are reflected in my paintings.
Lesley Bickley website

Simeon Stafford was born in 1956, in Dukinfield, a small northern town bordering the Pennines. He was introduced to L.S.Lowry after winning the Robert Owen School Award for Art and the Manchester News Portrait Award, who then became a friend of the family and encouraged him to study art.

In 1972 and 1973, he studied at Hyde College and in 1974, became a professional artist and exhibited his work in mixed exhibitions throughout the north of England and London. His work at this time reflected the gritty northern landscape and characters in what has been called a primitive style. In 1996 Stafford moved to Cornwall where he met the artists Terry Frost and Patrick Heron, whose colour and light had a great impact on him.

In 2001 his work was included in the Royal Academy Summer exhibition.

While Stafford’s paintings share a visual simplicity with Lowry’s iconic northern street scenes, his reference points are far removed from the industrial backgrounds of where they both grew up. Conversely, his relocation to Cornwall gave Stafford’s work a defining, alternative mood – both liberated from the muggy northern towns whilst also painting in recognition of Lowry’s bustling crowds. Furthermore, it was in Cornwall where he met and was influenced by notable St. Ives painters such as Sir Terry Frost and Patrick Heron. Stafford’s work can be seen as the confluence of Lowry’s simple and naive approach coupled with the vibrancy and jocularity of the Cornish artists.
Thompsons Gallery

Stephen Felstead was born in Hampshire in 1957 and moved to Cornwall in 1990. For many years he worked at sea in the Merchant Navy and dredging. Living in Mousehole near the fishing port of Newlyn it was inevitable that he should become a fisherman. He had his own small boat working out of Mousehole and also going away on netters and trawlers out of Newlyn. For a time he worked on a 'super crabber' on Gurnsey and was particularly impressed by the colourful boats filling the harbours of the islands. It was from this that he took his inspiration for his pastel boat paintings.

Although Stephen has had no formal art training he has always sketched and painted and in 1998 found that his pastel paintings of boats attracted interest from local galleries. He believes that having an art degree is not everything and that training can stifle ones originality and ability to paint with freedom. His atmospheric seascapes depict the movement and moods of the sea as seen 150 miles off Lands End, not as is usually the case from the shore or cliffs. Without his experiences at sea Stephen feels it would be impossible to create these works, remembering the highs and lows, particularly those experienced as a fisherman.

Living for several years on the Penwith moors he was inspired by the ever changing colours and stone walls to use oils on canvas to produce his rich abstract paintings.

His work has been exhibited throughout England and he has sold to collectors worldwide.
Stephen Felstead website

Carole was born in Germany of British Army parentage, and was subsequently educated in England at Marlborough College before attending the Slade for studies in art. There she was awarded the David Murray Studentship in landscape painting, which led her to working in mid-Wales. After working for some years in graphic design in London, she took to having long working holidays in Cornwall as she was strongly drawn to the landscape and natural flora of the county. In 1983 she determined to make her permanent move to West Penwith.