The Coast of Cornwall in Art

Course Introduction

On this course we take a topographical tour of Cornwall around its coast through time via art and photography. The course includes artists who depicted or lived in different geographical areas of Cornwall including The Lizard, Falmouth, the Roseland peninsula, Newlyn, Mousehole, Lamorna and St. Ives.

It begins in the early 19th century with pioneers such as J.M.W.Turner, W. Daniell, C. Stansfield, and J. Brett who came to paint St. Michael’s Mount and Land’s End. We then look at Falmouth marine painters including C.N. Hemy, H. S.Tuke and Charles Pears. The colonies of artists in Newlyn including Stanhope Forbes and Walter Langley as well as in Lamorna with Lamorna Birch, A.J.Munnings, and Laura Knight are also included. We also review work by artists who have been inspired by the unique coast of the Lizard peninsula including contemporary artists such as Martin Grimshaw, Jonathan Xavier Coudrille and Heather Howe. 

We also look at  St. Ives both in the 19th century when it was a centre for marine painting led by Julius Olsson with L. M. Grier. Then we look at the influence of the modernists who arrived in St. Ives in the 1920s-1940s including Christopher Wood, Ben and Winifred Nicholson and W. Barns-Graham amongst many others. We end the course with a look at the North Coast from Portreath to Bude painted by the likes of John Brett, Charles Conder, Tony Giles, Racheal Mia Allen and Paul Hoare.

The Lectures

Image Credits: Lecture 1. J.M.W.Turner, Lecture 2. Winifred Freeman Lecture 3. Charles Simpson, Lecture 4. William Holeman Hunt, Lecture 5.Mary McCrossan, Lecture 6. Christopher Wood, Lecture 7. Rachael Mia Alen