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Welcome to 

 

stivesart.info 

 

the website of Art Historian 

 

DAVID TOVEY 

 

who specialises in St Ives art, the Newlyn School

and the other Cornish art colonies of

Lamorna, Polperro and Falmouth in the period prior to 1950

 

 

David's principal speciality is representational art in St Ives and he has published eight books on the subject, of which five have been major, ground-breaking surveys of St Ives art, namely

 

 

St Ives Art pre-1890 - The Dawn of the Colony

 

Pioneers of St Ives Art at Home and Abroad 1889-1914

 

Sea Change - Fine and Decorative Art in St Ives 1914-1930

 

Creating A Splash - The St Ives Society of Artists 1927-1952

 

St Ives (1860-1930) - The Artists and the Community - A Social History

 

Since 2000, David has also curated numerous exhibitions on Cornish art for Tate St Ives, Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, Nottingham Castle Museum, Worcester Art Gallery, Cheltenham Art Gallery and various other Art Galleries around the country. 

 

David has also written for the Dictionary of National Biography articles on William Titcomb and ‘St Ives colony artists 1885-1914’.  Furthermore, in 2012, he advised on, and appeared in, a film for Finnish and Swedish television on the Finnish artist, Helene Schjerfbeck, who visited St Ives on two occasions in the late 1880s. 

 

David's most recent project has been research into the history of Polperro as an art centre, leading to the publication in March 2021 of the two volume Polperro - Cornwall's Forgotten Art Centre, and an exhibition on the subject at Falmouth Art Gallery that runs from 2nd April to 18th June 2022.  For more details, see the Art in Polperro page.

 

David is also Editor of The Flagstaff, the magazine of the Lamorna Society, which promotes and celebrates the artists and writers who have been inspired by the beauty of the Lamorna Valley in West Cornwall.  Considerable interest has been aroused recently in this colony by the book/exhibition/film Summer in February.  David's current project is an extensive history of the Lamorna colony to be entitled Lamorna - An Artistic, Social and Literary History.  It is hoped that this will be published in late 2022 / early 2023 and that an exhibition on the subject will be held at Penlee House Gallery, Penzance during 2023.

 

For forthcoming exhibitions with which David is involved, see Cornish Art Exhibitions page.

 

Thanks for your interest.