Born in Wallasey, Wirral, Merseyside (GRO) on 7 June, 1869, Birch grew up in the Manchester area and is recognised as the 'father' of the Lamorna colony. In 1892, he moved to Cornwall, living first at Boleigh Farm. Stanhope FORBES and others suggested further training in France, and in 1895 he spent some months at Atelier Colarossi. Apart from this brief period of artistic study, Birch was wholly self-taught.
From his marriage to Houghton VIVIAN in 1902 until his death in 1955, he lived at Flagstaff Cottage, Lamorna, and painted the surrounding lands, cliffs, streams and terrains that he visited and loved. In many ways he was 'the man for all seasons' and is now acknowledged as the 'father of the Lamorna colony of artists' with his home, Flagstaff, serving as the centre and gathering place for artists and writers coming to the area. The many visitors would find him either working in his painting studio by the stream, or fishing in it; art and fishing were his passions and played 'equal first' in his life alongside his family.
Lamorna Birch, having selected the name Lamorna to distinguish him from his friend Lionel Birch, who was also painting in Newlyn at the time, was an extremely prolific artist, taking every opportunity to travel to patrons and to paint to commission. Earning a living from painting and tutoring was notoriously difficult. Birch was not one with inherited or family money as many of the gentleman-artists were. His work is represented in numerous public and private collections world-wide, and his picture St Ives, Cornwall (1938) was selected by the Chantrey Bequest and is in the Tate Britain Collection. In his lifetime he showed more than 500 paintings at the Fine Art Society, which reprinted many of them for commercial purposes.
Elected to the RWS (1914), an ARA in the 1920s and RA in 1934, Birch was the first RA to work in New Zealand, where he had travelled also to visit his daughter Joan Houghton BIRCH who had settled there (1937), receiving generous receptions from museum and gallery curators who purchased his work. The full story of his life is told masterfully by the author Austen Wormleighton, in A Painter Laureate, Lamorna Birch and his circle (1995). In 1997 the Falmouth Art Gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition which also toured to Plymouth. His work was selected for the RA's exhibition in 1988, The Edwardians and After, and the painting chosen was Our Little Stream, Lamorna. The scene remains the same today. The journal of The Lamorna Society is named The Flagstaff, and Birch's grandson, Adam KERR, was the Hon President of the working group of artists.
John Birch studied Fine Art at the West of England College of Art (now part of the University of the West of England). After graduating he remained in Bristol, continuing to paint, and held solo exhibitions at the Axis Gallery, Clifton and at the Bristol Arts Centre.
He also took part in several group exhibitions at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, and his work was included in the 'British Realists' exhibition at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
He then spent the rest of his career as a graphic designer, and only started painting seriously again after moving to Portscatho, on the Roseland peninsula, in 2013.
He is a regular exhibitor at the New Gallery, Portscatho, and at STISA open shows.
Simon Lewis Birch describes himself as a visual and movement artist, as his work spans a range of disciplines from painting to choreography.
He works from a studio in Bissoe, near Chacewater, where he conducts courses and art workshops.
Born in Genoa, Italy, the artist was the only child of Surgeon-General Sir John Harry Ker Innes KCB who was appointed an honorary surgeon to Queen Victoria. She married the artist Lionel BIRCH in 1893 in Kensington (GRO). At the Opening Exhibition of NAG in 1895 Mrs Birch exhibited Chrysanthemums, which was sold. She did not exhibit often and the whereabouts of her work is currently not known.
In 1902 she loaned a portrait of Alexandra Forbes Forbes to the Spring Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, together with most of the West Cornwall artists from Newlyn and St Ives. In 1909 she exhibited Echoes from Olden Time, also at NAG. She was the author of Stanhope A FORBES, ARA, and Elizabeth Stanhope FORBES, ARWS (1906), which was reprinted for the first time in 2005 (Cornish Classics). This book, partly authored by Elizabeth FORBES (chapters within the book in her own words) is one of a scarce number of contemporaneous accounts of the artistic life of the area. Constance Birch died in Ottery St Mary, Devon on April 13 1926, aged 61 (GRO).
Born in Flagstaff Cottage, Lamorna (the eldest daughter of Samuel John Lamorna BIRCH and Houghton VIVIAN), she was often painted by the artists of the Newlyn colony and their visitors (such as Laura KNIGHT and Harold KNIGHT, Thomas Cooper GOTCH, Phil Whiting, etc). Mornie and her sister Joan both showed handicrafts, along with their mother, at the Newlyn Art Gallery in the 1920s and 30s, and both were to develop talents in watercolour and oils. Her beloved Lamorna featured regularly in her work, and she also specialised in flower painting. She was educated at Badminton School, Bristol, taking some classes at Bristol School of Art.
In 1939 Mornie and her husband Jimmy (James Lennox Kerr, the writer) returned to Cornwall from Scotland where they had settled, and where she had taken further art lessons in Paisley. Following her mother's death in 1944, she and Jimmy ran the family home of Flagstaff on the cliffs above Lamorna Cove, looking after her father there until his death in 1955. In later life, she focused on driftwood sculpture.
A friend to many artists of her father's circle, including a lifelong friendship with Laura KNIGHT, she exhibited regularly in mixed shows at Newlyn. Her first success at the Royal Academy was in 1939, and she continued to be hung there regularly throughout her father's life. She was Chairman of the NSA Council (1953-5), becoming Hon President following her father's death that same year. Despite subsequent diminished artistic success, Mornie was a hugely influential figure in the Lamorna valley who was considered an excellent teacher and enjoyed many close friendships.
Jimmy died in 1963, and she continued painting, setting up a teaching and painting circle which continued under her supervision until her death at Lamorna in 1990.
Their work was displayed annually at the Lamorna Village Hall, where the series continues to the present day. An E L Kerr Archive is kept in the WCAA, gathered for a small Retrospective mounted at the Jamieson Library, Newmill by friends in 1990. Carn Gloose was exhibited at Penlee (2002), and Still life with Jug was sold in 2004 at the Queens Hotel, Penzance Auction for the WCAA Establishment Fund.
A biographical memoir, In Time & Place, Lamorna, was published in 1994 by her friend and pupil, Melissa Hardie, and is based upon her long life among the artists of the West Cornwall area. It is largely abstracted within Artists in Newlyn & West Cornwall: Dictionary and sourcebook (2009). She is buried near her father and her friend Pog YGLESIAS in the burial ground at Paul.
Her son, the late Adam KERR, and his artist wife Judith KERR, kept the artistic traditions of Flagstaff Cottage, Lamorna alive for the area, with Adam serving as President of the Lamorna Society of Artists who work and exhibit together in the Valley. Many of Mornie's former pupils are working today.
Houghton was a daughter of the prominent local mine-owning family, the Vivians of Camborne, and was born there. She was educated in Truro and qualified in London as a nursery nurse. Returning to Cornwall, she wrote asking Samuel John Lamorna BIRCH for painting lessons (1902) and then married him in August of the same year. He gave her the affectionate name of Mouse. Her paintings were mostly in watercolour and contain detailed studies of rocks, trees, landscapes and coastal scenes.
She was mother to Joan Houghton BIRCH and Elizabeth Lamorna BIRCH, both also painters, and made and exhibited crafts and the occasional painting at the Newlyn Art Gallery (with her husband and daughters), and two landscapes at the St Ives Society of Artists (1935). In 1937 at NAG she exhibited a painting Carn Barges. A work in pencil, Cottage at Lamorna (Private Collection), was exhibited at Penlee House (2002). An outlet for her craftwork and that of her daughters and their friend, Pog YGLESIAS, was their 'craft shop' set up - mainly during the summers - at the bottom of the drive leading up to Flagstaff Cottage in Lamorna. It was more a creative venture than a lucrative one, adding to the sense of community Lamorna always engendered.
Jenny Birchall's paintings on wood take a lighthearted look at summer visitors to Cornwall in all their diversity.
Colin Birchall creates powerful, heavily textured abstract works on canvas and wooden panels. These attempt to convey the experience of being in the landscape of west Penwith as a participant rather than a detached observer.
Born in Muswell Hill, London (30 March,1864 GRO), she studied at the Slade School before briefly attending the Academie Julian in Paris in 1889. She was recorded as a Newlyn resident in the 1891 Census, living at Church Lane, Mount Vernon, and exhibited at the Dowdeswell Exhibition of 1892 with the Cornish painters.
In Newlyn she shared a studio with another woman artist, Amy ATKINSON, but also continued to exhibit from her home in Haywards Heath, Sussex. She died in Cambridge on 11 September, 1948, age 84 (GRO).
Originally a wood engraver and book illustrator who took up watercolours to paint rustic subjects, he did a steel line engraving of St Michael's Mount in c1850.
Throughout the study of the history of the Newlyn school, researchers find references to the Birmingham Art Circle, the Royal Society of Birmingham Artists, and to the Edgebastonia, the newsletter-cum-journal of the Birmingham community of artists. One artist who remained a resident of Birmingham all his life, but visited Cornwall regularly and showed Newlyn pictures there, was Ernest HILL, and he was later Vice President of the RBSA.
It is useful to know that the original members of the Birmingham Art Circle were Oliver BAKER, William Arthur BREAKSPEARE, S CURRIE, William Banks FORTESCUE, John FULLWOOD, E S HARPER, Edwin HARRIS, John KEELEY, Walter LANGLEY, W S LLOYD, F MERCER, C MORGAN, W J MORGAN, Henry Martin POPE, W F RODEN, Harry S THOMPSON, William John WAINWRIGHT and Charles Henry WHITWORTH.
Those indicated associated with or visited in Newlyn, and have entries in this Index. All of these artists were known to each other, even if some did not travel to Cornwall.
See www.birtall.co.uk for further detail. Simon Birtall was Falmouth-based and remained working there for ten years after his studies were completed. Now he is both a free-lance illustrator and a painter (mainly in acrylics on canvas) and website designer, based in the Wirral in north-east England.
He graduated from Falmouth Art School in illustration and has produced designs for greetings cards, book covers, and advertising of all variety, working for clients such as Hallmark Cards, Random House publishing and BBC World Service. He continues to provide a range of stock illustrations and these can be seen on his website.
Simon's painting includes both landscape and portraiture.
Molly Biscoe is an artist and musician who graduated from Falmouth University with a BA (Hons) Illustration in 2015. She works from Krowji studios, Redruth.
Bishop was born in London and subsequently studied at the Slade, in Paris, Brussels and Pittsburg, USA. He also travelled in the Middle East. In 1888 he was one of the founder members of the St Ives Arts Club. His exhibiting career was extensive and primarily involved showing at the NEAC and the RA. The Chantrey Bequest bought his painting Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover in 1933, the year following his entrance as an Associate to the RA.
Graham Black is a printmaker with 25 years' experience in the design industry. He lives in St Buryan, near Penzance.
John Blackburn has lived and worked in Cornwall since 1969. His subjects include landscapes, seascapes and portraiture.
Pamela Blackburn moved to Cornwall from Hampshire in 1969. She began painting in the 2000s and lives in Helston. She describes herself as largely a traditional and representational watercolourist.
Keith first came to Cornwall in the early 1980s and has visited regularly ever since. In the 1990s he lived for a time in Newlyn and also at Cadgwith.
Keith's father was a sculptor. His own art studies were begun at Wakefield College of Art and continued at Neville's Cross in Durham. This he followed up by teaching arts and crafts for several year in the North of England.
Bednar has identified this artist as being born in Chester on 14 April, 1864 (GRO) who lived at 112 Fore Street, Newlyn for a decade from 1890. The 1891 Census lists him as S K M Blackburn, an Artist Painter, born in Cheshire lodging in the home of Eliza Trahair and her daughters, the latter being milliners and dressmakers. A fellow artist sharing the lodgings was Frederic MILLARD.
Correspondent Bill Curnow added to our biographical information on this artist with the following: 'On 14 May 1898 Ernest Robert Ireland Blackburne (34, artist, of Newlyn, son of John Ireland Blackburne, wine merchant) married Mildred Emily Perkins (19, of Newlyn, daughter of Thomas Norwood Perkins). What adds a bit of spice and color to the story is the fact that young Mildred's father was the Vicar of St. Peter's, Newlyn, where the marriage took place.'
With the Cornish painters he exhibited at Dowdeswells (1890) and at Nottingham Castle (1894). At the 1895 opening at NAG: 'Mr Ireland B is represented by one of his Academy canvases, The Song of the Sea Birds and a new picture of Marazion Marsh, which is quite in his best manner.' Though no sales appear for the artist in the Sales Record of the Newlyn Art Gallery, Blackburne took part in 1902 exhibition organised for those associated with the Cornish colonies at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1902, with his painting A Wind-swept Wessex Valley.
From Newlyn he moved in 1900 to Dorset, living near Poole in the village of Lilliput, where he died, aged 83.
An art student working in the St Ives colony in the late 1890s (Tovey), who 'captivated local audiences with his mandolin playing.' He worked from Back Road Studio and contributed frequently to the social entertainments in the St Ives community. A colour plate of his Boat by the Wharf, St Ives (1897) is published in Tovey (p243). His sending-in address was nearby Lelant. Later he lived at Merlewood in Bournemouth, Hampshire.
Born in Sunderland, in 1870, William Kirkbride Blacklock was the second son of William Blacklock, a painter, and his wife Eleanor Kirkbride, who were married at Sunderland. In the 1881 Census, William was an 8-year-old living at 5 Hudson’s Buildings, Bishop Wearmouth, Sunderland with his parents and his older brother Robert, all born in Sunderland. His father died in 1883, and in 1891 young William was 18, working as a pawnbroker and living at 10 Corporation Road, Rickersgate, Carlisle, his mother by now having remarried.
William had artistic ambitions, and in 1898 moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, winning the Queen's Prize for Drawing, and going on to become a painter in oils and watercolour. A number of paintings by him of Venice dated 1901 would suggest that he spent some time living in Europe. In 1902 he attended Edinburgh School of Art for several years, during which time he was using the forename 'Kay'. An obituary indicates that he became Head Master of the Edinburgh Academy.
He married in Chelsea in 1909 [Nellie] Ellen Eliza RICHARDSON. He seems to have added ‘Kay’ as his middle name when he took up as an artist. Nellie, a painter in her own right who exhibited at the RA, was also his model for a series of paintings from 1910 to 1917. William probably also painted in Holland, as the subjects and titles of his paintings suggest, and his subject matter and style is akin to that of Elizabeth FORBES.
Blacklock was a prolific painter of genre scenes in an academic style, and had 17 works hung in the Royal Academy between 1897 and 1918.
In the 1911 Census Blacklock is listed as a 41 year old artist painter at 46 Gunter Grove, Chelsea with his wife, and a one year old daughter Eleanor Irene, who had been born in Chelsea. By 1912 they had moved to 'The Barn' Walberswick, where there was an active artists' community. In 1916 they were still living there. In 1921 their address was 152 Fosse Road, South Leicester, but they moved on to Liskeard, Cornwall.
It was probably in 1921 that they settled in Polperro, living at 'Stonehaven', at the bottom of Talland Hill. He painted extensively in both oils and watercolours in the village. Blacklock died in Polperro, Cornwall in 1924, aged only 54.
Initially a potter, Clive turned to painting full-time in 1984. The artist was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey and attended Twickenham and Kingston Schools of Art. He came to Cornwall at the age of 20 in 1960, and concentrated wholly upon the potters' arts in both porcelain and stoneware.
As a painter he has worked steadily between France (Provence) and Cornwall, where he lives near Helston. Buckman lists a partial exhibition record, the WCAA keeps an ongoing list of current exhibitions in London and elsewhere. In 1992 he was included in the Artists from Cornwall Exhibition at the RWA.
The artist is listed as a member of NSA (2009).