Art movements, groups and themes
General talks about art movements such as the 'Newlyn School' and other groups and themes
Image from the Newlyn Artists photograph album,
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
An introduction to the Newlyn School 1880 - 1910
In the 1880s, the fishing village of Newlyn in the far West of Cornwall became a mecca for rural realist painters, who documented the lives of the local community in their beautiful and moving paintings. This talk will outline the key characteristics of this famous art movement, introducing the ‘father of the Newlyn School’ Stanhope Forbes and his talented wife Elizabeth (nee Armstrong), along with a host of their fellow artists, including Frank Bramley, Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier Tayler and Henry Scott Tuke tales, as well as some of the real-life characters they depicted.
Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1884, Stanhope Forbes (1857 - 1947), collection of The Box, Plymouth City Council
The Brotherhood of the Palette 1880 - 1910
Despite living only to the age of 36, the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884) inspired a whole generation of artists to turn their hands to rural realist painting. In Britain, 'the cult of the square brush' was particularly championed by Stanhope Forbes, and through him became synonymous with the first generation of Newlyn School artists. This talk looks at the technique and subject matter that tie British painters to their continental counterparts, examining paintings of breath-taking beauty and skill from both sides of the Channel.
Detail: Eyes and No Eyes, Frank Bramley (1857 - 1915),
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
Art in Cornwall
1880-1940
The legendary quality of light, dramatic landscape and sparking turquoise seas have drawn artists to West Cornwall for over 200 years. This talk explores the 'Newlyn School' artists, from their first flowering to the later Lamorna colony, together with their contemporaries in nearby St Ives. Featured artists include 'Newlyners' Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, Walter Langley and Frank Bramley; the later generation, including Laura Knight, Harold Harvey, Dod Procter and ‘Lamorna’ Birch, and St Ives-based contemporaries Helene Schjerfbeck, Marianne Stokes and Julius Olsson.
Dame Laura Knight DBE RA RWA presenting Lamorna Birch and his daughters to the University of Nottingham
The Lamorna Artists’ Colony 1910 – 1940
In the early 1900s, as the main artists’ colony in Newlyn began to lose its coherence, the focus shifted a few miles along the coast to the dramatic wooded cove at Lamorna. Here, students from the art school founded by Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes joined with leading artists such as Dame Laura Knight, Alfred Munnings and SJ ‘Lamorna’ Birch to establish a more bohemian community, producing great works of art while outraging the locals with their wild ways, and playing host to leading figures of the day, from Augustus John to 'tramp poet' WH Davies.
Detail: Departure of the Fleet for the North, Walter Langley (1852–1922), Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
Birmingham Boys: the Newlyn School and the RBSA
The acknowledged pioneer of the ‘Newlyn School’ was the Birmingham born and trained artist Walter Langley, who first visited in the village 1881. In the 1880s, Langley divided his time between Birmingham and Newlyn, and fellow members of the Birmingham Art Circle (which Langley co-founded in 1880) soon started to make the trek to the far south west. These included Langley's close friend Edwin Harris, who accompanied him on one of his earliest Newlyn trips, and William Wainwright, William Banks Fortescue, William Breakspeare and Frank Richards followed on to become recognised members of the School.
Students painting en plein air in the Meadow, Forbes School of Painting, Newlyn, c.1910
Women of the West
1880 - 1950
It is a little-known fact that the first artist to 'discover' Newlyn as a source of artistic inspiration was a woman, Caroline Burland Yates, later to become Mrs Thomas Cooper Gotch. This talk will explore some of the astonishing women who have pioneered a role for their gender as artists, from 'The Queen of Newlyn', Elizabeth Forbes, through her St Ives-based friends and contemporaries including Marianne Stokes and Helene Schjerfbeck, to the ground-breaking feats of Dame Laura Knight and Dod Procter, right through to C20th artists such as Dorothea Sharp, Rose Hilton and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.
Archive photograph of SJ Lamorna Birch painting on the clifftop at Lamorna, West Cornwall
Painting at the Edge: Britain’s Coastal Art Colonies 1880 – 1940
Taking its title from the 2005 exhibition and publication of the same name name (for which Alison was co-curator and co-author), the topic takes in the art colonies in Newlyn, St Ives, Lamorna, Walberswick, Staithes, Cullercoats and Kirkcudbright. The artists in these far-flung coastal communities were often linked through mutual friendships made during study at the Parisian ateliers and summers spent in the French art colonies of places such as Concarneau and 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, providing rich subject matter for the artists to capture in paint.
The Morning Ride, c.1912, Sir Alfred Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S (1878-1959), private collection
Summer in February:
Art, Love and Loss in Lamorna on the eve of War
Jonathan Smith's novel, later made into a film, brilliantly brought to life the stories unearthed by David Evans when he discovered his late father, Gilbert's diaries from his time as Land Agent in the Lamorna Valley in the lead-up to the First World War, telling the tragic tale of his relationship with Alfred Munnings' first wife, Florence Carter-Wood. Through art and archive photographs, this talk leads us through the story, looking at the full cast of characters whose lives it touched, including Dame Laura Knight, Dod Procter, SJ 'Lamorna' Birch, and Stanhope Forbes, as well as Munnings himself, and the joyous bohemian friendships they shared in the seemingly carefree days before both personal and global tragedy struck.
The Royal West of England Academy, c.1900, Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archive
Secrets of a Royal Academy of Art
1844 - 2024
The RWA (Royal West of England Academy) in Bristol is Britain's only regional Royal Academy of Art and one of the oldest Art Galleries and Art Schools in the country. Behind its grand façade lies a fascinating history of pioneering gender equality and 180 years of creative inspiration. Founded by a woman artist, the indomitable Ellen Sharples, and with Bristol's leading abolitionist, John Scandrett Harford, as its founding President, its cast of characters includes early donors Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Prince Albert; the first woman President of any Royal Academy, Dame Janet Stancomb-Wills, and major British artists such as Dame Laura Knight, Vanessa Bell, Mary Fedden and Dame Elisabeth Frink.
Detail: The Convent, 1882, Stanhope Forbes (1857 - 1947) Private Collection
Another Cornwall:
Artistic links between Brittany and Cornwall 1880 – 1940
In the second half of the C19th, artists from all over the western world congregated in Brittany, forming vibrant art colonies in Pont Aven and Concarneau, and spilling over into adjacent towns and villages. Many of these artists moved on to visit or settle in Cornwall, with St Ives being the focus for a more international and gender-balanced group, and Newlyn becoming synonymous with British rural realist painting. This talk looks at some of the key artists who worked in both locations, including Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, Walter Langley, Norman Garstin, Marianne Stokes, Helene Schjerfbeck and Christopher Wood
Detail: Boy with a Hoe, Elizabeth Forbes (1859 - 1912),
private collection
Into the Fields:
Rural Realist paintings of Cornish landscape and farming
The Newlyn School artists are best known for their depictions of the fishing industry, yet their artistic inspiration came from the French tradition of depicting rural toil, from Millet's The Gleaners of 1857 to Bastien-Lepage's oeurvre of the 1870s and 1880s. This talk weaves its way through the stunning Cornish landscape in the company of those who made their living from the soil, examining the crops and livestock they tended, and evoking a pre-industrial rural idyll that these outstanding artists captured so beautifully in paint.
Tucking a School of Pilchards, Percy Craft (1856 - 1935),
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance
Drawn from the Sea:
Images and stories of Cornish Fishing 1880 – 2010
Throughout its history, Cornwall has been reliant on fishing as one of its key industries. In the 1800s, vast pilchard shoals provided "meat, money and light all in one night", as the fish were consumed, sold and drained of their oil, which was used to fuel lamps. This talk includes some of the best-loved Newlyn School paintings, depicting both the tragedy and hardship and the extraordinary spectacle of fishing in the late Victorian era, bringing the subject right through to the current millennium with a selection of images from a stunning photo essay 'Newlyn: Fishing for a Living' by Vince Bevan.
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