The St Ives School refers to a group of artists living and working in the Cornish town of St Ives.Tate St Ives, St Ives School
Tate Gallery Accessed 9 September 2017. The term is often used to refer to the 20th century groups which sprung up after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

around such artists as Borlase Smart, however there was considerable artistic activity there from the late 19th Century onwards.

History

The town became a magnet for artists following the extension to west

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

of the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

in 1877. Painter

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

and his pupils, Walter Sickert and Mortimer Mempes, arrived in 1884, and spent the winter in the town.The Early Artists' Colony
from St Ives Society of Artists. The Sloop Inn in St Ives, located on the wharf, was the favourite haunt of Victorian artists including Louis Grier. Many of his paintings hung there in earlier years. Albert Julius Olsson and Louis Grier opened the town's first art school in 1888, and were later joined by Algernon Talmage. Talmage lived and worked in his studio (then called 'The Cabin', located on Westcotts Quay, St Ives). John Noble Barlow settled in St Ives in 1892, although later, he had a studio in the Lamorna Valley, Cornwall. Thomas Millie Dow moved with his family to St Ives in 1894, where Dow joined his friends and fellow painters Louis Grier and Lowell Dyer as members of the St Ives Art Club.

Expatriate artists

American Impressionist painters Edward Emerson Simmons and Howard Russell Butler came to St Ives in 1886, and founded a studio at Porthmeor. Butler stayed for two summers, but Simmons and his wife, artist Vesta Simmons, lived and painted in the area until 1891. Swedish artist Anders Zorn painted in St Ives, 1887–88, and his ''Fish Market, St Ives'' won a gold medal at the 1889 Paris Salon. American painters Sydney Laurence and Alexandrina Dupre honeymooned in St Ives in Summer 1889, and their stay in the fishing village and art colony eventually extended for nearly fifteen years. Canadian painter Emily Carr came to St Ives in 1899, and studied under Olsson and Talmage. Australian painter Hayley Lever first came to St Ives in 1900, married a local woman, Aida Gale, in 1905, and painted there until their 1914 emigration to the United States, while another Australian E. Phillips Fox met his wife-to-be, artist Ethel Carrick, there in 1903. American painter Walter Elmer Schofield and his wife made St Ives their residence from 1903 to 1907, lived in Perranporth after World War I, and retired to Breage in 1937.David Tovey, ''Creating A Splash - The St. Ives Society of Artists - The First 25 Years (1927–1952)'' (Hilmarton Manor Press, 2003). Schofield recommended the area to fellow American painters George Oberteuffer, Frank Shill and Frederick Judd Waugh. American artist Paul Dougherty lived six months of the year in St. Ives from 1908-1913 following the death of his wife, developing the maritime style for which he would become most famous. File:Julius Olsson - Plateada luz de luna en St Ives.jpg, Julius Olsson, ''Silver Moonlight, St Ives Bay'', Southampton City Art Gallery, UK File:Algernon Mayow Talmage-Marina.jpg, Algernon Talmage, ''Marine'', Bushey Museum, Hertfordshire, UK File:John Noble Barlow Cliff Scene.jpg, John Noble Barlow, ''Cliff Scene'', Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, UK File:Thomas Millie Dow - St Ives Harbour.jpg, Thomas Millie Dow, ''St Ives Harbour'', File:'Low Tide, St. Ives Harbor' by Edward Emerson Simmons, 1887.jpg, Edward Simmons, ''Low Tide, St Ives Harbor'', private collection File:Yellow Sweater.jpg, Howard Russell Baker, ''Yellow Sweater'', private collection File:Anders Zorn - Fiskmarknad i St. Ives.jpg, Anders Zorn, ''Fish Market, St Ives'', private collection File:Brooklyn Museum - Winter St. Ives - Hayley Lever - overall.jpg, Hayley Lever, ''Winter in St Ives'',

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, New York City File:Waugh Southwesterly Gale, St Ives SAAM-1909 9 3 1.jpg, Frederick Judd Waugh, ''Southwesterly Gale, St Ives'', Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Post-WWI

In 1920 Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada set up a pottery in St Ives, creating a further international art connection for the town. In 1928

Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England. Backg ...

and Christopher Wood visited St Ives where they were impressed by the work of local artist Alfred Wallis. This started another strand in the development of the Cornish fishing port as an artists' colony. The St Ives School of Painting was established in the historic Porthmeor studios at the centre of St Ives' artists' quarter in 1938 by Borlase Smart and Leonard Fuller. With the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1939, Ben Nicholson and his then wife the sculptor Barbara Hepworth settled in St Ives, establishing an outpost for the abstract avant-garde movement in west Cornwall. They were soon joined by the prominent Russian Constructivist sculptor

Naum Gabo Naum Gabo (born Naum Neemia Pevsner; Russian language, Russian: Наум Борисович Певзнер; Hebrew language, Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר) (23 August 1977) was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's ...

. After the war ended, a new and younger generation of artists emerged, led by Hepworth and Nicholson (Gabo departed in 1946). From about 1950 a group of younger artists gathered in St Ives who included Peter Lanyon, John Wells, Roger Hilton, Rose Hilton, Bryan Wynter, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Alexander Mackenzie, Harry Ousey, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham,

Stass Paraskos Stass Paraskos (; 17 March 1933 – 4 March 2014) was a British-Cypriot painter, sculptor, and writer. Born and raised in Cyprus, he spent much of his life working and teaching in England, where he famously became embroiled in a 1966 obscenity ...

, Paul Feiler, and Karl Weschke together with the pioneer modern potter, Bernard Leach (Nicholson departed in 1958), and including, for a while, Sven Berlin. It is with this group, together with Hepworth and Nicholson, that the term 'St Ives School' is particularly associated. A 2010 ninety-minute BBC 4 film, "The Art of Cornwall", presented by James Fox explored in some detail the lives and works of many of the key figures and the contributions they made in establishing St Ives as a major centre of British art from the 1920s onwards. Helen Hoyle's review of this programmeHelen Hoyle, ''review of The Art of Cornwall''
artcornwall.org. Accessed 9 September 2017 is also very informative.

St Ives School today

The heyday of the St Ives School was in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1993, the

Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Mu ...

, a new, purpose-built art gallery overlooking Porthmeor Beach, was opened which exhibits the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

collection of St Ives School art.

References

External links