Born in London, the artist was the son of an artist and designer, and his mother an opera singer. He trained in art with his father and under the tutelage of Walter SICKERT, finding a main interest in marine art.
He toured English coastal towns before sailing to Australia in 1907, the tour probably being the occasion for his first visit to West Cornwall. Returning to settle permanently in Britain in 1925, the interim had been taken up with painting in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. In 1914 he joined the Australian Imperial Force as a signaller, trained in Egypt, and saw service at Gallipoli.
Shell-shock meant that he was returned to Egypt and then to convalesce in England. He kept a diary and sketchbook all through the experience which was published in 1916 as Crusading at Anzac AD 1915 and portrayed war as the soldier sees it, 'shorn of all its pomp and circumstance.' Throughout he worked to record the Australian participation at Gallipoli in paintings and three of these were bought for the Australian War Memorial Collection. In 1921 he returned to Australia, living in Sydney, working as a commercial artist.
In 1922 he painted in the Trobriand Islands, New Guinea, and then returned permanently to Britain. Silas married Ethel Florence Detheridge in 1927. His most widely known local work is a depiction of the Royal Navy Algerine-class minesweeper, HMS Wave Ashore at St Ives 1952, that broke her moorings at St Ives in a storm during the early hours of 30 September 1952, and kept at the National Maritime Museum, London.
Mollie Silver is a painter and sculptor who lives in Constantine near Falmouth.
Stanley Simmonds was born in Droitwich, Worcestershire. After attending Birmingham College of Art, he served in the Royal Navy during World War II, where he made a life-long friend of the Cornish poet Charles Causley. After the war he resumed his studies at the Royal College of Art. Upon graduating, he and his wife Cynthia moved to a flat in Earls Court. He began work as art teacher at Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School, a position he held for the next 30 years. During this time his artistic career flourished and he became well known for his paintings of Billingsgate Market. This important series documents his journey from figuration to abstraction.
Eventually he and Cynthia moved to Launceston in Cornwall, where they became neighbours of Charles Causley. There he continued to paint until his death.
In Oxford Simmonds' work was shown alongside that of Ivon Hitchens, John Piper and John Bratby. He exhibited also at the Royal Academy and the London Group, attracting considerable critical acclaim.
Oliver Simmons describes himself as 'mostly self-taught'. He lives near Penzance, where he paints coastal scenes and boats in acrylics or watercolour. His work has been exhibited widely in Cornwall and beyond.
An American from the Boston area (Concord, Massachusetts) who arrived in St Ives in 1887 via Concarneau, and began to exhibit locally and nationally. In 1890 he showed two works at the Dowdeswell Exhibition, and that same year he bravely challenged the Royal Academy on their hanging and selling policies in relation to the paintings they accepted for exhibition.
An account of the conflict is included in Whybrow (St Ives, Portrait of a Colony pp 37-8), and this marked a kind of watershed in the RA hegemony, after which artists began to look around for additional exhibiting spaces for their work. He was married to Vesta S SIMMONS (nee Shallenberger) and their home address was at Trelyon, Halsetown, but the address given for submissions to shows was 23 The Terrace, St Ives, Cornwall - perhaps their working studio. His latest address (Graves 1893) was given as Paris. He died in Baltimore, Maryland.
An overseas British subject, born in Illinois, USA, as Vesta Shallenberger, Vesta Simmons was an artist age 28, with two small children, William (6) and George (4), when living at Halsetown. Her husband was the artist Edward Emerson SIMMONS.
She did exhibit, though not extensively, submitting one figurative subject before 1893 at the GG, and two elsewhere.
Charles Eyres Simmons was born at Rainham, Kent early in 1872. By 1881 his family had moved to Kingston in Surrey where his father was a coachman. He became a watercolour artist of landscapes, harbour and coastal scenes. He studied under Hubert COOP. Through his career he seems to have moved to many places and has not been found on the 1891 or 1901 census returns. By 1901 he was living at Cardisland, Herefordshire and he married Aimee Emily Swayne in the Weobly RD towards the end of 1901. She had been born in France.
By 1911 he, his wife and sister in law were living at Ruan Minor Churchtown on the Lizard. He later moved to Devon, then the Channel Isles before finally living at Hastings. He died at Hastings early in 1955 aged 83. He exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, Piccadilly and in Liverpool in the period 1902 - 14.
He signed his work Eyres Simmons in a distinctive but difficult to read form. His work is often to be found in the auction houses but is sometimes miscatalogued.
Originally from Yorkshire, Sophie Simpson now lives in Cornwall. The sea glass, pottery and wood fragments which she collects from the shoreline find their way into her artwork via the encaustic technique. Sustainability is at the heart of her art practice.
Her work has been shown in Cornwall and beyond.
Born on 8 May 1885 in Camberley, Surrey, his father was Charles Rudyerd Simpson, a Major General, and his mother, Leonora (nee Devas). Initially the artist was educated by a private tutor, and later (1904) attended the Herkomer School at Bushey. In 1910 he was in Paris studying at the Academie Julian.
Simpson's first visit to St Ives was in 1905. He married Ruth ALISON in 1913 and together they led a busy life of teaching, painting and writing, for some years running the St Ives School of Painting.
Walter (as he was known) and Ruth were to live a peripatetic life, living at Polwyn House, Newlyn from 1913 to 1914 (where their daughter Leonora was born), Carbis Bay (1914-16), Lamorna (1916-18), St Ives (1918-24), London (1924-1931), and Lamorna again (1931-45).
The outbreak of World War II resulted in a period of financial hardship as commissions and sales dried up. He became a deputy chief warden in Air Raid Precautions and an auxiliary coastguard but it was a difficult time and so they left Lamorna, moving to Dorset where Walter had a job as a farm labourer. On their return to Lamorna in 1943, he joined STISA and resumed exhibiting, to critical acclaim.
In 1946 they settled in Penzance. Ruth died in Redruth in 1964.
Simpson's published and unpublished writings, family papers, letters and diaries are in the WCAA Collection, as bequeathed by their late daughter, Leonora Simpson. A full biography of the artist by John BRANFIELD was published in September 2005 by Sansom & Co, to coincide with a major retrospective exhibition at Penlee House.
Walter's own books include: Trencher and Kennel; Emily Bronte; El Rodeo; Composition for Photographers; Animal and Bird Painting; and The Fields of Home for which he provided both the text and the illustrations.
His illustrated works include: The Fellowship of the Horse by S H Goldschmidt; Practical Jumping by J L M Barrett; Old Montreal with pen and pencil; Horseplay for Boys & Girls by John Thorburn; Manners and Mannerisms, A book for fox hunters by Crascredo (Country Life); Son of a Gun by Major Kenneth Dawson; The Gone Away by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe; Wit and Wisdom of the Shires by Major Guy Paget; Unknown Cornwall (numerous colour plates, monochrome and textual vignettes) by C E VULLIAMY; A Pastorale, with foreword & poem by Lady Jane Butler (12 woodcuts); Leicestershire and its Hunts (London: John Lane, Bodley Head 1926); The Harborough Hunt Country (London: John Lane, Bodley Head 1926).
In 2005, the WCAA published a previously unknown manuscript written and illustrated by Charles Simpson, entitled The Country of the Woodlanders, A Wartime Memoir of Hardy's Wessex. This book is available at Penlee House, Penzance, and by order from our On-line Bookroom.
The artist was born in Preston, Lancashire, the fourth son of Thomas and Maria Simpson, cotton mill owners. Coming as he did from a wealthy family, his former homes include Hutton Hall, nr Preston (now a Police Training College) and Uplands, Farncombe, nr Godalming, Surrey (1871). In 1877 he returned to Lancashire to work in his father's mill, and married Edith Anne Burdett from Manchester. By 1888 his home was at Fearnholme, Eastbourne and St George's Club, Hanover Square, London.
He came to St Ives in 1900, living at Belmont Terrace, Ayr, until 1904 when he moved to Riverside, Lelant. In the Census of 1901 he describes himself as living on own means, and it is likely that he had come into his inheritance by this time. Recently discovered photographs to be found in the St Ives Archive, confirm his presence there, and reveal too that the artist William EADIE used him as a model for his painting of St Philip for the Apostle screen at St John in the Fields Church, Halsetown. He rented one of the Porthmeor Studios from the Cowley Estate, and began to show his work at the RCPS in Falmouth.
In 1904 the couple moved to Riverside, Lelant and Simpson exhibited an oil of Niagara Falls and other scenes from around the world, indicating extensive travels in between. In 1908 he exhibited a painting of Niagara Falls again, at the Rochdale Art Gallery and other north American scenes in local exhibitions.
Simpson and his wife left Lelant in 1910 and moved up county to St Cyres, Stratton, near Bude. In his 1911 census return he describes himself as an artist in oils, an ex-master cook, a cotton spinner and manufacturer of Hartford Mills, Preston. Simpson's wife Edith died (as reported in the 12 Sep 1913 issue of St Ives Times) from heart failure while on holiday in Switzerland.
Born in Newcastle, the daughter of Alister and Ada Alison, she was brought up in Harrogate and educated at Wycombe Abbey in Bedfordshire.
Ruth studied at the FORBES SCHOOL of Painting, Newlyn (1911-12) and married Charles Walter SIMPSON in 1913. The couple were to live a peripatetic life, living at Polwin House, Newlyn 1913-14 (where their daughter Leonora was born), Carbis Bay (1914-16), Lamorna (1916-18), St Ives (1918-24), London (1924-1931), Lamorna again (1931-45) and Penzance (1946-64).
Ruth's great interest was portrait painting, and she painted several portraits of her fellow women artists, including Ella Louise NAPER and Gertrude HARVEY. Her portrait of artist Frank VER BECK of St Ives is in the collection of the RCM, Truro. She died in Redruth, and is buried at Paul Cemetery.
See entries for Charles Walter SIMPSON and his wife Ruth SIMPSON.
An official War Artist in WWI, multi-talented Sims's style changed to become spiritual and numinous thereafter. Mentioned in Whybrow's 1921-39 list of artists in and around St Ives, from 1920-26 he was employed as Keeper of the RA but resigned due to mental illness; he took his own life in Scotland.
A portrait by Sims of Alan Gordon MacWhirter (1903) and a domestic garden scene entitled The Little Faun (1908) are part of the permanent collection of the RCM, Truro.
Listed in the 1891 Census as a 32 year old artist, born in London and visiting at 85 Alverton Street, Penzance.
The 1891 Census lists him as born in Scotland and boarding at Woodlane Terrace, Falmouth.
W J Sirett (fl.c1920) worked from Westcott Studio, Skidden Hill, St Ives. Little is known about him, but his daughter, Miss S M Sirett, entered three dogs in the Crufts Show in 1938.
SiSi (Zdenka Bockova) was born in the former Czechoslovakia. She now lives in south-east Cornwall. Her mandalas and wall hangings are made from textiles.
Sonia Sjoholm was born and brought up in Cornwall. Her artistic journey began in ceramics, but she communicates her ideas using a wide range of media in her work. She is a former member of Taking Space, a collective of women artists in Cornwall.
Andrew Skelton was born in Truro and studied art at Falmouth University. His work has been exhibited at the Stowe Gallery in St Ives and the Summerhouse Gallery in Marazion.
Having studied with Pam Booth and Ron Wood, Diane Skinner feels there are two sides to her work: sculpting and coiling in clay, and then working in fibreglass and resin. Preferring not to cast, she creates individual bird-sculptures using her hands, manipulating the clay in order to shape each feather individually. Handpainting each piece also brings her birds to life.
Edgar Skinner and his wife Edith (a poet) lived in Salubrious House, Salubrious Place, St Ives, in retirement from his working life as a bank manager. Having lived for some years in Italy he was multi-lingual with a cultured interest in music, art and literature. First visiting St Ives in 1907 and joining the St Ives Arts Club, they decided to settle in Cornwall around 1910. (See Tovey) A studio was created in their home, and he worked in watercolour, mainly as an occasional pastime rather than with serious intent.
The couple involved themselves in all aspects of St Ives life, to the extent that Edgar took over the role of Borough Accountant during WWI when there was something of an hiatus, and supervised the artists' garden allotments in the food shortages of 1917. He was the first President of the St Ives Literary Society in 1919. As particular friends to and admirers of the work of Frances HODGKINS, the artist was to paint what became acknowledged as her most important work of her time in St Ives: The Edwardians (1918), a group painting showing Skinner, his wife and their maid.
Edith had been responsible for recommending Bernard LEACH to her friend Frances HORNE, who was so instrumental in encouraging the establishment of the Leach Pottery and supporting it financially. Tovey writes: 'Realising that finance and paperwork were not Bernard's forte, Edgar...offered his services. In April 1922, Leach indicated that Skinner was joining the Pottery the following month as "business manager and assistant craftsman", but he is generally referred to as the Secretary.' At this point the Skinners moved from Salubrious House and built a new home opposite the pottery (today a hotel known appropriately as 'Edgar's').
When the Hornes' business failed and financial support to the Leach enterprise dried up, Skinner's idea of obtaining some support from students interested in apprenticing themselves to the Pottery, by paying for the privilege and giving free service, was useful in tiding over some critical moments. When Edgar died in the winter of 1925, Leach installed tiles on his grave at Barnoon Cemetery which read "He went through life with outstretched hand of help."
Peter Skinner studied art at both the Redruth School of Art and subsequently the Tunbridge Wells School of art. He owned his own gallery in Bromley, Kent, where he restored Victorian prints and continued with a range of mediums, producing paintings and mixed media work.
Returning to live in Cornwall, and exhibiting here, he also sells work from the Gallery in Kent.
Katrina Slack was born in Exeter. She studied Sociology in London, subsequently gaining a post-graduate qualification in Photographic Journalism. While working as a photographer and a teacher, she became involved in the music industry, playing in a band, writing and touring.
In 2001 Katrina moved to west Cornwall, attending a variety of classes at Penwith College and St Ives School of Painting. She employs a wide range of media to express her concern for environmental issues. The art of Kurt JACKSON has been an influence on her work. Recently she received a commission from World Animal Protection to make a series of sculptures out of 'ghost fishing' gear, for display around the UK to promote their 'Sea Change' campaign. Locally, her work has been shown at Blue Mist Gallery in St Ives.