Cornwall Artists Index

Peter Brown was born in Hertfordshire but moved with his parents to St Just in 1951. He was educated at Penzance Grammar School. After leaving school, he obtained a place at Falmouth Art School (1963-1965), where one of his tutors was DERRICK WILSHAW, who had in 1947 founded the Lamorna Pottery. Brown subsequently attended the Central School of Art & Design in Holborn but did not complete the course.

Returning to Cornwall, he gained valuable experience setting up a pottery at Lands End. In 1966 he married Shirley Jago and, with financial assistance from his widowed mother, was able to purchase the Lamorna Pottery, which had suffered from poor management. In order to support his growing family, Brown altered the ethos of the pottery by turning to slip cast items. These utilitarian pieces were popular and were key to making the business more commercially viable. 

During the 1970s, when Bruce Forsyth's 'Generation Game' featured members of the public attempting to throw a pot, the Lamorna Pottery created a 'Throw a Pot' area. This novelty attracted a flow of tourists eager to try their hand, which led to the need to provide refreshments, initially sold from a shed manned by Peter's mother. Other family members became involved in the pottery too - in particular Peter's wife Shirley, who became proficient at glazing and decorating, and packing pots for shipment to customers.

In 1980/1981 substantial extensions were made to the pottery, including a new showroom and craft centre. Students were employed to run the coffee bar and manage the 'Throw a Pot' area. The reputation of the pottery grew to the extent that commissions were received from local clubs and organisations for the creation of trophies and commemorative items. Peter had little time for art pieces but some of his bowls and large cylinder pots have survived.

In 1988 Peter Brown retired from the pottery, which was sold to Osmond Rego.

Brown was born in Jersey, graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1999, and to start with, began work as a professional artist in Brighton. After a brief return to Jersey where she established her studio in an historic barracks from the Napoleonic era, and some time in France, she and her artist partner Heath HEARN settled in Cornwall on the Rame Peninsula (2006).

Katy and Heath, alongside a contemporary group of other artists, including the British abstract artist, Steve JOY, have established their studios in yet another Napoleonic-period barracks, in Cornwall at 'Maker Heights'. She works primarily in oil with palette knife and brush.

Born in Warminster, Wiltshire, the artist was a London-based painter (address in Swiss Cottage) until the 1891 Census, when he and his wife, Edith Clara, were living in the parish of St Uny, Lelant, near St Ives.

His painting for the 1890 exhibition at Dowdeswells, which was entitled November Weather-St Ives, indicates that they had moved to Cornwall some time earlier. His daughter Constance Mabel, 3 years old at that time, had been born in Berlin, an Overseas British subject.

Warne Browne exhibited at Newlyn from the opening exhibition in 1895, his paintings always proving popular. A major sale he achieved at NAG was of seven sketches on sea subjects in 1899. By 1901 he and his wife and three daughters had moved to live in Ruan Minor, the address he gave for exhibition purposes.  He was a member of the NSA. Although he exhibited at the Royal Academy, he did not achieve the recognition he deserved in the UK. However, his seascapes were sought after by Americans.

Tovey has found an image of Pilchard Fishing with the Seine Net, reproduced in 1901 in The Sphere, which was simultaneously showing at an exhibition at the St James Gallery in London. This scene shows a large group of fisherman working their large seine net, possibly off the coast of St Ives, though the location is indeterminate.

In 1905 he exhibited two paintings at NAG, which were both sold to a Liverpool buyer, Winter Weather and Lizard Coast; and Kynance two years later. In 1913 he resided at Lower Shiplake, Oxon.

Upon his death in Ruan Minor from a stroke in 1915, the artist was described in the Helston Advertiser and the West Briton as 'a true Bohemian, with a highly developed artistic temperament. Mr Warne Browne loved the sea, and painted it with a sincerity and fidelity which ought to have secured for him a higher place in the world of art'.

See Gai LAYOR.

Simon Browning is a member of the Lizard Art Co-operative.

Born on 7 July 1862 in Nottingham with the name of Anderson Henry, Anderson was his father's forename as well. The artist was a lace manufacturer by trade, and Bednar has noted a Newlyn title listed for him in a mixed exhibition at the RBA. In 1889 at the RA he exhibited A Court in Newlyn, and the following year he showed In sweet September.

His sending-in address to the Paris Salon (1892) was 5 Magdala Road, Nottingham, and he exhibited two paintings that year: Le Soir and a view of Wells-sur-Mer (Norfolk).    

He died on 23 August 1920, aged 58, in Nottingham (GRO).

Living at 23 Regent Terrace, Penzance, the artist exhibited locally at NAG in 1937 with Autumn Bunch.  Both she and her husband attended the FORBES SCHOOL classes in 1937.

Ken Bruce is a landscape painter who lives and works in north Cornwall. In 1988 he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

The artist was born at Eastbourne, coming to West Cornwall because of her friendship with Mornie BIRCH, made while they were both pupils at Badminton House in Clifton, Bristol.

She began her art training at the FORBES SCHOOL in the early 1920s, with the informal tuition of Lamorna BIRCH, and spent time thereafter in Paris. She remained active in Lamorna, St Ives and Newlyn artistic circles until 1955, and lived variously in Paul Village, Newlyn and Truro from 1924-1955. Primarily she painted portraits and landscapes.

Midge also attended painting classes with Harold HARVEY and Ernest PROCTER. Her paintings were signed "Midge" or "Bruford". Dod PROCTER painted several portraits of her (See p189 of A Painter Laureate, Lamorna Birch and his circle, by Austin Wormleighton).

Bruhl was responsible for Cornish Riviera, the GWR railway poster that epitomised the possibilities of this new mode of transport to exotic parts of England in the early 20th Century, alongisde other images depicting the delights of Falmouth and Glorious Devon.

Christine Brunnock, a painter of seascapes, is based in St Ives, where she grew up.

In 2018 she was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Art Prize. She won the ING Discerning Eye Purchase Prize in 2023. 

Her work has been widely exhibited, not only in Cornwall but more widely throughout the UK.

Andrew Bryant's training as a psychoanalyst informs his art practice, which involves transforming found photographs into monochrome oil paintings. In 2021 he participated in the One Year Mentoring Programme at Newlyn School of Art. He lives and works in Cornwall and his work is in private collections in the UK and abroad.

Born in Port Adelaide, Australia, she studied at the Adelaide School of Design under H P Gill. She was the wife of the Reverend Reginald Bryant. In the 1924 Show Day at St Ives she exhibited three large oil paintings from Lanhams Art Gallery and was well reviewed: 'the largest is a scene, trees yellowed by autumn, another is a pastoral scene of bringing the harvest home, while the third is a river scene, charming and quaint with white farm buildings among dense green trees.' (St Ives Times)

Annie was successful in exhibiting at the Paris Salon (10), and during the 1930s she offered summer sketching holidays based at her home at Clyst St Lawrence, Exeter.

Canadian painter, born in Greenock, Scotland, who visited St Ives between 1901-10, Brymer was a Royal Canadian Academician who gave a sending-in address in Manchester in 1884-5. No further information is currently available about his time in Cornwall.