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Written to accompany the 2008 exhibition, Dawn of a Colony : Picturing the
West (St Ives 1811-1888) at Tate St Ives, of which the author was Assistant
Curator, this book analyses, for the first time, the artists who worked in St
Ives in the period prior to the formation of the art colony in 1885.
The author demonstrates that, as distinguished artists, such as Edward Cooke RA
(1848), James Clarke Hook RA (1860), John Brett ARA (1872) and others, including
the American Pre-Raphaelite marine painter, William Trost Richards (1878-80),
had produced important paintings of the town previously, the visit of James
Whistler in 1884 has been accorded too much significance, in a St Ives context,
in the past.
Instead, David investigates the claim by the early American colonist, Howard
Butler, that the French artist, Émile-Louis Vernier, was "the person who really
discovered St Ives", and demonstrates that Vernier drew the town's attractions
to the attention of a group of artists of various nationalities, who had been
working together in the Breton art colonies of Concarneau and Pont-Aven.
The St Ives colony, therefore, was effectively established from Brittany, with
foreign artists outnumbering English ones in the early years, leading to a focus
on the exhibitions at the Paris Salon, rather than the Royal Academy.
Artists involved in the early years of the colony include the Americans Edward
and Vesta Simmons, Frank Chadwick, Howard Butler, Charles Reinhart and Rosalie
Gill, the Finns Helene Schjerfbeck and Maria Wiik, the Swedes Anders Zorn and
Emma Lowstadt, the Norwegian Bernt Gronvold and the German Franz Muller-Gossen,
as well as Adrian Stokes and his Austrian wife, Marianne Preindlsberger,
Stanhope Forbes and his Canadian fiancée, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Henry
Harewood Robinson and his Irish wife, Dorothy Webb.
With Anders Zorn's Fisherman, St Ives being bought by the French
Government in 1888 and with a number of other artists winning awards in Paris
for their St Ives paintings in the years 1887-1890, the colony made an instant
impact in Paris, leading to further groups of artists coming to visit, and so,
from the outset, the colony was an international community with a cosmopolitan
outlook. In addition, Adrian Stokes secured the colony's first major success at
the Royal Academy in 1888, when his Barbizon-influenced landscape, Upland and
Sky, was bought by the Chantrey Trustees.
The author also highlights the early fraternisation between the colonies at St
Ives and Newlyn and looks at the initial impact of the artists' arrival on the
town.
The result of extensive new research, this book is not only the first account of
the pre-colony period, but also re-writes the history of the establishment of
the St Ives colony.
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ISBN : 9780953836352
Paperback only 120 pages (A4 - 297mm x 210mm)
101 illustrations (73 in colour)
Price £12-95
Postage : UK free, Europe £4.00, Worldwide £4-00 (surface), £8-00 (airmail)
Privately published, this book is best obtained direct from the author,
David
Tovey,
at 11-13 Mill Bank, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England GL20 5SD
E-mail : dwt@stivesart.info Telephone : ++ 44 (0)1684 850898 |