A Creative Tide: St Ives Artists & Their Enduring Legacy
This week's guest blog is from my friend Karen of The Old Potato store in Manchester who spent a few days visiting St Ives earlier this year and has kindly agreed to write about it here. I hope you enjoy it!
There’s something about the light in St Ives Cornwall. A kind of soft clarity that dances over the beaches and the white painted, former fisherman's cottages that tumble down to the harbour. It’s no wonder that it became a retreat for so many artists. St Ives isn’t just a place to visit, it’s a feeling, a quiet presence that urges you to slow down and see.
Porthmeor Beach
I’ve just returned from a week there. It’s been quite a few years since I was last there, but as always it had me completely under it’s spell. Of course there is those afore mentioned beautiful beaches, the exploding food scene and the bracing coastal walks, but more than that, the legacy of creativity still hums within the bones of the town. Within the many galleries from small independent spaces, to The imposing Tate gallery that looks over Porthmeor beach and the Atlantic Ocean, like a great white galleon.
Image credit: Tate St Ives
In the mid 20th Century St Ives became something of a sanctuary for artists seeking space. Escaping the post-war gloom of London, they came for the famous light and the sea and stayed for the freedom it afforded them. Work spaces were cheap and the surrounding areas a constant inspiration for their work. What they created, nestled in those simple studios, went on to change the course of British art.
Ben Nicholson & Barbara Hepworth were the first to arrive and it’s hard to overstate their influence. Nicholsons modernist still life paintings and Hepworth’s organic sculptures, influenced by the natural rock formations surrounding her, found true expression in Cornwall. Her studio and her garden, where many of her large sculptures are dotted around, within tropical planting, remains one of my most favourite museums to visit. Her studio evokes such a sense of her having just left the room, that’s it’s hard to imagine she won’t be returning.
If you’re interested in exploring more of Barbara Hepworth’s work, I would also highly recommend The Hepworth gallery in Wakefield, the birth place of the artist, where there is a permanent collection of her works.
Image credit: Tate St Ives
Barbara Hepworth Studio
Barbara Hepworth Sculpture in Garden
Later came artists such as Peter Lanyon, Terry Frost, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Alfred Wallis, each bringing their own style, but all rooted in the same dialogue with the land, sky & sea. There’s also something so honest about how these artists lived. Their studios weren’t grand or precious, they were simple, purposeful and full of light. You can still visit the Porthmeor studios on Back Road West and have a guided tour and view the work of some of the artists living and working in St Ives today. Many of the works of Alfred Wallis, who was a poor fisherman, were bought by Jim Ede, the original owner and curator of kettles Yard in Cambridge. It is now one of the largest permanent collections of Wallis's work and the research library within the museum includes fascinating letters that were sent between Jim Ede & Alfred Wallis negotiating the price and transportation of the works from St Ives to Cambridge.
Porthmeor Studios. Image credit: Paul Massey
Alfred Wallis paintings. Image credit: Kettles Yard
Image credit: Kettles Yard
I always come home from St Ives feeling restored, not just by the sea air, but the intention to create which awaits you around every corner. This place and the legacy of the artists and their studios, has most definitely inspired the way I style using soft worn linens, chalky painted walls and bleached wood. I am always drawn to buy items that feel as though they have had a life and been loved and my choice of art works available on my website, The Old Potato Store, is very often informed by the simple shapes and still life paintings created in St Ives during the mid 20th Century.
St Ives Harbour Painting available from The Old Potato Store
Collins & Green Art offers a spectrum of abstract works, many of them directly inspired by the St Ives artists of the mid 20th Century. A few of my favourites, currently in stock are shown below.
Cornish School Abstract
Coastal Abstract Image
Still Life with Jug
If you’re planning a visit, I’d urge you to wander slowly up and down the cobbled streets with names such as The Digey, Love Lane, Salubrious Terrace and Teetotal Street. Visit The Hepworth Museum, The Tate Gallery, Penwith Gallery and some of the many quiet galleries tucked down side streets, where local makers, potters and artists carry on the tradition of St Ives as an artists colony. Oh and definitely make sure you try the award winning Brown Bread ice cream at Palais Provisions. You can thank me later.
Karen x
Visit The Old Potato Store here and check out their Instagram
