Friday 4 July 2008, 10.00–18.00
Saturday 5 July 2008, 09.30–12.00

In the context of collaborative exhibitions Dawn of a Colony, Picturing the West, St Ives 1811-1888 (until 21 September) and Dawn of a Colony, Lyrical Light, St Ives 1889-1814 at Penlee House Gallery & Museum Penzance (until 13 September), this event will explore international perspectives on the development of St Ives as an artists’s colony from 1811-1914.

Re-examining the work of early visitors to St Ives, the symposium will explore their initial connections with the Newlyn School and the emergence of the colony as a world-renowned centre for both the practice and teaching of landscape and marine painting.

Contributors include Exhibition Curator and St Ives art historian David Tovey; Curator Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse, National Gallery of Finland; Valerie Livingston, Associate Professor of Art History, Susquehanna University, Philadelphia.

Programme Friday 4 July 2008

10.00-16.00 Venue: Porthminster Hotel St Ives, St Ives

16.00 Depart for Tate St Ives (transport provided)

16.30-18.00 Introduction to exhibition at Tate St Ives

Guided tour followed by drinks in the café (pay bar)

Programme Saturday 5 July 2008

09.30 Transport from Tate St Ives to Penlee House

10.00-12.00 Optional guided visit with Curator David Tovey in Penlee House exhibition

Tate St Ives 
£20 (£15 concessions), booking recommended
Ticket price includes refreshments and guided visits to both exhibitions.

  

Talks

Helene Schjerfbeck’s St Ives

This first talk will focus on two periods that Schjerfbeck spent in St Ives (July 1887-Winter 1888 and July 1889-May 1890), and will explore her work such as The Convalescent (Première verdure) (1888), her techniques, as well as significant relationships made with Austrian painter Marianne Preindelsberger, English painter Adrian Stokes and Finnish painter Maria Wiik (1853-1928). Helene Schjerfbeck is acknowledged today as one of the major figures in Finnish art. She has succeeded amongst only a few artists in being able to create a career embracing naturalism, impressionism and modernism.

Art Schools and Student Life in St Ives

This talk will look at the various Schools of Painting set up in the town prior to the First World War. Concentrating almost exclusively on landscape and marine painting, two genres that were largely neglected in other art schools, they encouraged students to work outdoors, tapping into the enthusiasm for plein air painting.

Alumni of the St Ives Schools of Painting went on to become leading landscape and marine artists of the next generation, in Britain and abroad in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Using newly-discovered sources, the talk will also explore the nature of the professional relationship between students and tutors and the wider social dimension of enduring friendships in this context.

W. Elmer Schofield’s Cottages, Coves, and Countrysides in Cornwall and America: a Life of Devotion

Early twentieth century land and seascape painting of Cornwall and America by a Philadelphia artist defined W. Elmer Schofield’s devotion to both his ancestoral roots in Cornwall and his homeland. His marriage to Murielle Redmayne, an English woman, further cemented his fascination with Cornwall. Its houses, coves, and cliffs, similar to scenes that had inspired him in America, offered him subjects that he responded to over the entirety of his life.

His harbour scenes, however, at St Ives and Newlyn, describe marine activity distinctive to Cornwall. Returning to the U.S. each year, Schofield participated in the American Academy’s winter exhibitions, in which he served for many seasons as a juror of awards. Subsequently he encouraged the St Ives Artist Colony painters to participate within the American Academy, assisting in their garnering acknowledgment for their work.

Contributors

Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse
Chief Curator, Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki

A specialist in nineteenth and twentieth century Scandinavian art, Leena curated both Dreams of a Summer Night, Hayward Gallery (1986) with a particular focus on Finnish women artists such as Ellen Thesleff and Helene Schjerfbeck, and a major Schjerfbeck retrospective in 1992 which toured the Ateneum, Helsinki, the Phillips Collection, Washington, and the National Academy of Design, New York.

She also wrote And nobody knows what I’m like (2002) exploring Schjerfbeck’s self-portraits and recently contributed to the Schjerfbeck retrospective exhibition in Hamburg, the Hague and Paris. In 2000 she was a visiting scholar at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, lecturing on Finnish art, architecture and design.

David Tovey
Art historian and Curator

A freelance art historian, with degrees from the University of Oxford (Jurisprudence) and the University of Warwick (History of Art), David specialises in Cornish art, particularly the art colony at St Ives. He has produced numerous books on St Ives art and individual artists including St Ives Art pre-1890 - The Dawn of the Colony and Pioneers of St Ives Art at Home and Abroad (1889-1914). He has curated the current exhibition at Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Dawn of a Colony - Lyrical Light, St Ives 1889-1914, and has co-curated the current exhibition at Tate St Ives, Dawn of a Colony - Picturing the West, St Ives 1881-1888.

Valerie Livingston
Associate Professor of Art History, Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania

Associate Professor of Art History, Former Head, Department of Art and Founding Director, Lore Degenstein Gallery, Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania, Valerie holds a Ph.D. in the History of American Art and Architecture from the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on American art of the early to mid twentieth century, particularly modernism and abstract expressionism, 1930-1950.

She is the author of Hans Moller: Purveyor of Color, 1905-2000 and W. Elmer Schofield, Proud Painter of Modest Lands amongst others and is currently working on a comprehensive monograph on American artist Walter Elmer Schofield for the James A. Michener Museum of Art and University of Pennsylvania Press.

This event is related to the Dawn of a Colony: St Ives 1811–1888 exhibition