ST IVES AND THE MODERNIST ARTISTS St Ives and the New Era “St Ives”, Patrick Heron has affirmed, “was unparalleled in the history of modern art - a provincial town, not much bigger than a large village, that gave its name to an international art movement.” Ben Nicholson, June 1937 (1937) The painter Ben Nicholson, his wife, sculptor Barbara Following the war, Bernard Leach came to St Ives and they met with dancer, artist and writer Sven Berlin who Hepworth, and their three children, arrived in St Ives in established the Leach Pottery in 1920. He had trained had moved down the year before, and also Peter August 1939. They came at the invitation of the artist in Japan, and was the first potter in the country to Lanyon, the only St Ives-born member of the young and writer Adrian Stokes and his wife, painter Margaret produce studio-ware incorporating both eastern and moderns, who was tutored first by Borlase Smart and Mellis, to escape from the anticipated bombing in western traditions and philosophies. Ben Nicholson also later Ben Nicholson. They were soon joined by the London, and stayed with them at Little Parc Owles. Ben visited Cornwall with his first wife Winifred and Russian Constructivist, Naum Gabo, and in 1940 by Nicholson was to remain here for 19 years, and Barbara Christopher Wood, and in 1928 they came to St Ives Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, an art college friend of Hepworth for the rest of her life, and they were at the and met the primitive painter, Alfred Wallis. This meeting Mellis. However Nicholson and Hepworth were unable heart of a group of artists based in St Ives who had a was an important moment for all of them. The to persuade Piet Mondrian to join them since he did decisive effect on the development of modern art in Nicholsons and Wood were transformed by Wallis’s not like to leave the city. Britain in the second half of the 20th century. directness and disregard for perspective, and they in turn brought serious recognition for Wallis. During the war, Lanyon joined the RAF, Nicholson and St Ives already had a significant artistic heritage. Gabo became air raid wardens, Stokes and Leach joined Following the visit of Whistler and Sickert in 1884, it Ben and Winifred returned to London, but they soon the Home Guard, and sculptor Denis Mitchell worked had attracted artists from all over the world, with more parted, and he met Barbara Hepworth, who was later as a miner at Pendeen. After 1945 they were joined by foreign artists than English ones in the early years. Many to become his second wife. Together they travelled to a new stream of young exciting artists including Terry had come to study at the School of Painting established Paris in the 1930s, visiting the studios of Picasso, Braque, Frost, Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Paul Feiler, Bryan at Porthmeor Studio 5 by Julius Olsson, recognized as Arp, Brancusi and Mondrian, and began to be influenced Wynter and John Wells. This important group of artists one of the foremost marine landscape painters of his by contemporary French painting and sculpture. were to help establish the international reputation of generation. However, much of the excitement and St Ives, and when sixty paintings were commissioned by international flavour of the colony was ended by the Nicholson and Hepworth brought this European the Arts Council for the 1951 Festival of Britain, eight outbreak of the first World War. influence with them when they moved to St Ives. There were by Cornish-based artists. Text by Janet Axten, Heritage Manager, St Ives Archive. Margaret Mellis Adrian Stokes (mid 1930s) Naum Gabo Barbara Hepworth Bernard Leach Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson c1940 Porthmeor Studios & Cellars ST IVES AND THE MODERNIST ARTISTS Barbara Hepworth, Spring (1966) Penwith Gallery The Penwith Society Borlase Smart was a greatly respected marine landscape or C depending on whether they were traditional, painter and the main driving force for the St Ives art modernist or craft, many of the members resigned in colony between the wars, organizing touring shows to protest that the ideals of Borlase Smart were being promote St Ives artists all over the country. His stated ignored. This classification was only removed in 1958. intent to“like the best in both traditional and advanced art” led him to champion the young modernists, and he Gradually the Penwith Society came to represent invited Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Peter mainly the modernists, and led by Nicholson and Lanyon to exhibit alongside himself in his Porthmeor Hepworth, its members’ works started to appear in Studio. He also arranged for them to join the St Ives public collections and gain international recognition. The Society of Artists, and in 1945 to exhibit round the font Society also started to receive regular funding from the The Crypt Group in the Society’s new home at The Mariners Church, Arts Council and it flourished throughout the 1950s, where they were joined by John Wells, Sven Berlin, organizing three exhibitions a year. In 1961 with the aid Wilhelmina Barns- Graham and Margaret Mellis. of a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and a loan from St Ives Town Council it moved from The traditional artists were not wholly welcoming of Fore Street to new premises in Back Road West, this ‘advanced’ group, and so for the next three seasons formerly pilchard cellars. the modernists showed separately in the space below the church, and so became known as The Crypt Group. In 1972 the Penwith launched an ambitious project to Borlase Smart opened their first exhibition in 1946, but acquire adjacent premises enabling it to display a when he died 1947, they had lost their main supporter permanent collection of works from artists associated and the inevitable split occurred. Seventeen members with St Ives. Barbara Hepworth had been a key figure of the Society resigned, and at a meeting held at the in both contributing and helping to attract funding, but Castle Inn, they formed The Penwith Society of Arts in it still took several years to raise the £80,000 needed. Herbert Read at Penwith 1949 as a memorial tribute to Borlase Smart. The Finally in 1976, the year after Barbara Hepworth nineteen founder members included Ben Nicholson, tragically died, Sir Norman Reed, Director of the Tate Barbara Hepworth, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Peter Gallery opened the Penwith Gallery on the same day Lanyon, Sven Berlin, Bernard Leach, Denis Mitchell, that he opened the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Marjorie Mostyn and Guido Morris. Its first President Sculpture Garden. was the writer, critic and painter, Sir Herbert Read. The new Penwith Gallery was loaned paintings, Following the example set by Borlase Smart, The sculptures and pottery from all of the most important Penwith Society was set up to embrace traditional and artists associated with St Ives, and this unique and modernist artists and craftsmen. Its first exhibition in important collection was on permanent display. 1949 at its new gallery in Fore Street featured 100 However this display was short-lived because its annual works: paintings, pottery, sculpture, furniture and Arts Council subsidy was withdrawn in 1980. Unable Sven Berlin, John Wells and Peter Nicholas Serota and Richard embroidery, and was a great success. However, cracks to meet the costs of maintaining the display, the Penwith Lanyon hanging their work for Carew Pole outside the Penwith the first St Ives based Crypt Gallery soon began to appear as difficulties in selecting between was forced to return the works to their owners and Group of Artists exhibition 1946 representational and abstract works became apparent. the collection dispersed, to the dismay of its members. When it was proposed that works be classified as A, B The dream of a permanent collection came to an end. Porthmeor Studios & Cellars ST IVES AND THE MODERNIST ARTISTS Patrick Heron, January 1973 14 (1973) The Legacy Tate 1985 exhibition catalogue Since the 1880s St Ives has attracted some of the Not surprisingly many of the visitors to the exhibition, greatest artists working in this country, but there was readers of the book and viewers of the film were to no gallery in town for visitors to see the works that ask: “But where can we see the work of those artists in St they had produced. Following WWI, former mayor Ives?” This question would be answered a few years Captain John Hain suggested an Art Gallery housing later when Tate St Ives opened in the summer of 1993, work by local artists would be a fitting War Memorial, built to house the Tate’s collection of St Ives paintings but this idea was not taken up. His proposal was revived and sculpture. These works were rarely seen by the by Borlase Smart at the end of WW2, who asked that general public at that time. the Town Council buy Treloyhan Manor and convert it into a park, museum and art gallery, but this proposal The project came about initially because Cornwall was narrowly defeated. County Council was concerned that in the 1970s and early 1980s, many people were now taking inexpensive Tate 1985 exhibition In the late 1940s and 1950s St Ives was the one place holidays in Spain, and the Council was looking to find a in Britain where modernist artists flourished, and there way of encouraging them to return to Cornwall. were stronger connections with the abstract expressionists in New York than with comparable With the enthusiastic support of the Tate director Sir artists in London. Their work was exhibited throughout Nicholas Serota, the old derelict gasworks site fronting the world and was toured by both the Arts Council and Porthmeor Beach was chosen to be the site for the the British Council.