Molly Tufnell's work 'explores issues relating to processes and patterns that form the natural world.'
Born in Nottinghamshire, Alan Tugwell moved to Cornwall in 2004 to pursue his artistic career in wood sculpture. His foraging and rescueing of odd timbers and interesting trunks of wood which he allows to emerge as fine sculptural pieces under his patient hands, are well deserving of distinguished surroundings. Work shown on his website is primarily of the human form, however in the past two years additional work has become abstract and evocative of the landscape in shape and texture. His studio is at Morvah.
Though not as yet showing his work very widely, he is preparing currently for his third exhibition at the Morvah Schoolhouse in 2012. His second exhibition there in 2009 was a virtual sell-out, and in 2011 he exhibited six major pieces at the Open Gardens Arts & Crafts Show, in aid of ACE (Aid Conservation through Education) held at the Jamieson Library, Newmill, Penzance.
Born in Wood Lane, Falmouth (24 February 1861), Maria was the sister of the artist Henry Scott TUKE. As a child she was educated privately with the Fox children (Caroline FOX and Anna Maria FOX), and then further at Weston-super-Mare. While her brother studied at the Slade her family moved to London, but she was not allowed the same privileges as he, despite an innate talent for art. She befriended a number of her brother's friends, including Thomas Cooper GOTCH, and despite no formal training painted landscape and portrait subjects, mainly in watercolour.
She married Dr Harrington Sainsbury in 1899, with whom she had four children. She continued to paint after her marriage, signing her work MTS. Her shipping watercolours are similar to those of her brother, and she was with him at his cottage overlooking Swanpool in Falmouth when he died. As Maria Tuke Sainsbury, she wrote a book about her brother Henry Scott TUKE, RA, RWS: A Memoir (1933).
A Quaker by birth and up-bringing as were the Fox family, Maria converted to Catholicism after the death of her husband, and spent her last years in a Catholic Convent on the Bayswater Road, London. She died on 15 August 1947 in Richmond-upon-Thames, aged 86. Five of her works, all watercolours and all from Private collections, were exhibited at the Falmouth Group Show of Women Artists in 1996.
Born on 12 June 1858, York (GRO). Soon after his birth, due to ill health, the family made a move to Falmouth. After attending a Quaker school at Weston Super Mare, where his friendship with Arthur TANNER began, Tuke studied at the Slade with Edward J POYNTER (1875).
Meantime, in 1867 at the age of 9, he began to show art work at the RCPS at Falmouth, and continued to do so until 1904 (in 1899 he became its Vice-President). Tuke was awarded a three-year Slade scholarship by Alphonse Legros (1877), and his life-long friendship with Thomas Cooper GOTCH developed from there. He worked in Florence (1880) and in Paris 1881-3, under J P Laurens, where Gotch also joined him.
On his return to England, he settled back in Cornwall: first at Newlyn, already a centre for French-style plein-air painting where he also made a great friend of William Ayerst INGRAM, and later in Falmouth, where he purchased a boat and his sea-studio came into being. In that same year (1886) he was one of the artists helping to found the New English Art Club. Most of his work reflected his love of sailing ships, knowledge of the sea and sunlight. He also painted male nudes, usually boys posed on sunlit beaches.
His painting All Hands to the Pumps! was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest (1889), as was August Blue (1894). Ingram, Gotch and Tuke together formed the 'Society of Country Painters' in 1907. In 1910 at NAG he sold Bathing. The highly regarded Henry Scott Tuke, always a stalwart of the artists' communities, died on 13 March 1929, age 70, at Falmouth. The longtime interest and devotion of Brian D Price and John F Tonkin, RCPS, Falmouth, in curating, transcribing diaries, and collating the Tuke Collection is acknowledged with admiration and thanks.
Sally Tully is based in Ashton near Helston. After a Foundation Degree in Graphic Design, she worked for many years as a freelance graphic artist. An evening class in pottery heralded a change of direction, and she returned to university, gaining a BA (Hons) in Applied Arts in 2009.
Her work consists mainly of raku, pit and smoke fired pottery. In 2021 she reached the quarter-final of the Great Pottery Throwdown.
Born on 14 July 1849, Derby, Derbyshire (GRO). Early Newlyn titles by this artist have been noted by Bednar dated 1881, but no local references, or further information at this stage. The artist 'was an inspector for schools...latterly for art and drawing' (Obituary). Tunaley died, age 89, on 3 September 1938 in Farnham, Surrey.
Tunnard was born at Sandyford, Bedfordshire in May 1900, and was schooled at Horton School and Charterhouse, where he won the Struan Robertson prize for drawing 2 years running.. Between 1919-1923 he studied at the Royal College of Arts, then worked as textile designer from 1923-1927. He worked as a part-time teacher of design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1929, before exploring Cornwall and eventually making it his home.
A full chronology of his life is contained in the 1977 catalogue of the Arts Council exhibition, 'John Tunnard 1900-1971' - a major retrospective touring show which began at the RA, and progressed to Kettle's Yard, Kettering Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, finishing at the Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance. The biography by Alan Peat and Brian Whitton (1997) is an elegant and thorough tribute to this important artist, including a catalogue raisonne and exhibition list.
The artist married a fellow student at the RCA in 1926, Mary May ROBERTSON ARCA, and painted landscapes and coastal scenes during the 1930s, coming to Cornwall on a 5-month camping expedition to paint on the Lizard, and continuing thereafter to paint in Cornwall whenever he could. After his first solo show at the Redfern Gallery in 1933, his sub-title being 'Paintings from Cornwall', he purchased a caravan and moved to Cadgwith on the Lizard, where he rented part of a fisherman's loft and began a hand-blocked silk industry with his wife.
In 1934 he joined the London Group and began to paint abstract works influenced by Klee, Miro and the British surrealist movement. During the 1930s his work often featured architectural, sculptural and biomorphic forms, combined with elements of constructivism. In 1939 he was given a show at the influential though shortlived Guggenheim Jeune Gallery in London, which was a pivotal moment in his career. Peggy Guggenheim bought one of his paintings, which led to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York purchasing his 'Fugue' in 1944.
During World War II Tunnard worked as a coastguard while he and his wife kept their hand-blocked silk business going. He continued to exhibit not only in England but also in British Council exhibitions in Australia and South America, and had a solo show in New York in 1944.
During 1946 Tunnard had a brief spell teaching at the Wellington School in Somerset, before selling his cottage at Cadgwith and moving to Zennor in 1947. The following year he began teaching design at the Penzance School of Art, which he continued to do until 1965. In 1953 he moved to Lamorna, where he and Mary (known as Bob) created a beautiful and unusual home and spectacular garden at the head of the Valley, where Laura KNIGHT and her husband Harold KNIGHT once lived.
Some of his best work was carried out between 1958 and 1962. From 1960 he began to be hung regularly at the Royal Academy, and was made an ARA in 1967. Much of his work responded to world events such as the 1962 detonation of an atom bomb on the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific (for example, 'Aftermath'). His interest in the moon and space exploration found expression in 'In Many Moons' (1966-7) and 'Messenger' (1969).
At the death of his wife in 1970, he moved into a flat in Penzance, where he died the following year. The two artists are buried in Zennor churchyard.
Eleanor Turnbull is a sculptor who was born in Co. Durham but now lives in Cornwall. In 2022 she graduated with an MFA in Fine Art from London's Slade School of Fine Art. The same year she won the Sarabande Emerging Artist Fund. She has exhibited and undertaken residencies nationally and internationally.
Elaine Turnbull was born in Sunderland. She gained a BA (Hons) in Printed Textile Design from Edinburgh College of Art in 1985 and subsequently studied at Bath Spa University, obtaining a PGCE in Art & Design in 2001. The coast has always played an important part in her life and she moved to Cornwall in 2009, currently living and working from a studio near Helston.
She has enjoyed solo shows at Gallery Forty-Nine in Bridlington and Kentmere House Art Gallery in York. Early in 2014 she was accepted as a member of STISA and is delighted that one of her images is on the poster advertising the STISA Members' Spring Show (1 March - 21 April 2014).
Daniel Turner was born in Rochdale. His work examines the act of painting, the rituals of the painter and the functions of the painting and the studio.
In 2011 he obtained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from University College Falmouth. His work has been widely shown in Cornwall, elsewhere in the UK, and in France. In 2025 he became a regular exhibitor at Circle Contemporary, at Hawksfield, Wadebridge.
Turner is a tutor at the Newlyn School of Art.
Simon Turner was born in London. During the 1990s he studied Fine Art at Middlesex University.
He lives and works in Penzance. His paintings are crafted on found pieces of panel, which when assembled form a narrative of his interests and experiences.
Listed as exhibitors of hand-weaving at NAG in the Summer Exhibition of 1928.
Herbert William John Turner was listed as living with his elder sister Alice Helen in Penzance in the 1871 and 1881 Census. His marriage to Louisa Eddy was registered at Penzance in 1899. Listed in the 1901 Census as a 37 year old artist from Bristol, living at Lelant, with his wife and daughter (Dorothy Helen) and in the 1911 Census at Longview, Carbis Bay. He and Louisa went on to have two more children, Aubrey Herbert and Susanna Edith Irene.
He died in Carbis Bay was was buried at nearby Towednack.
Living at Briar Dene, Carbis Bay, and listed by Whybrow as an artist in the St Ives area.
From her studio at Trevescan, Sennen, Lands End, Turner creates abstract landscapes and conceptual illustrations in paint and mixed media.
Though born in Covent Garden, London, Turner's origins lay in the West Country where his father had a baker's shop in South Molton, Devon. After working under Thomas Malton, the architectural draughtsman, his early career as an artist was launched as a wandering topographical draughtsman.
He travelled extensively, making sketches as he went, and working on his Liber Studiorum. Two of these journeys brought him to Cornwall - in 1811 and 1813 - where he produced more than 200 sketches, some of which became later developed paintings, others remaining as Cornish sketchbooks and records of the southern coasts of England. His visits and his work in Cornwall were to influence many artists who followed. Wood comments that Turner was 'The greatest English artist of the 19th century, and one of the most important figures of the Romantic Movement.'
Emma Turner explores such experiences as ritual, faith, fear and memory in drawings and paintings which engender a sense of intrigue within the viewer's mind.
Ken Turner was born in India. At Christmas 1993, he put on a Performance entitled 'Doubtless' at NAG, partnering students from Dartington College of Visual Performance. It coincided with his election to the NSA, as the first performance art member of the Society. Contents of Doubtless combined the use of poetry, dance, painting, music and sculpture.
William Turner, known as Turner of Oxford to distinguish him from the more famous J M W Turner, was born at Blackbourton, near Bampton, Oxfordshire on 12 November 1789. He studied with John Varley in 1804 and in 1808 was elected a member of the Old Watercolour Society (later RWS). Until 1815 he worked in the southern counties of England, often around Bristol. He then toured extensively, visiting the Lake District, North Wales, Derbyshire, Devon, the New Forest and Isle of Wight. He settled in Oxford from 1811 where he taught many amateur artists as well as university students. In 1836 he made a sketching tour of Cornwall. From 1838 he toured the west coast of Scotland on several occasions. He worked predominantly in watercolours but occasionally used oils.
He inherited the manor house at Shipton, Oxfordshire from an uncle who had brought him up after his parents had died early in his life. He married Elizabeth Ilott at Shipton in 1824. He exhibited prolificly throughout his career with the Sketching Society, RA, and BI. He died at 16 St John's Street, Oxford on 7 August 1862 and was buried at Shipton.
Born in Warwickshire, Daphne wished from childhood to draw and paint, but it was not until she came to West Cornwall that she was able to fulfill her ambitions.
From 1981 until 2005 she worked in textiles, teaching and making quilts alongside her husband, the textile and quiltmaker, Pepe TURNER. Their first joint venture was Windmill Patchworks at Launceston, which they established in 1984. There they offered fabrics, ethnic clothing, a vegetarian cafe and a classroom offering instruction in patchwork quilt-making.
In 1989 they moved their business to St Ives and set up Westgate Patchworks near the harbour. Two years later they opened in larger premises offering residential textile courses. Moving out of St Ives to Ludgvan, and continuing their classes, it was not until 2005 that they opened Carvossa Studio Gallery beside their home where they would show Daphne's paintings, maintain a set of working studios, and continue to offer classes.
Daphne wasted no time in developing her impulse to paint, and from 1992-3 she completed courses in Art & Design, and Painting One. From 1994-2010 she was a student of life classes and personal workshops at the St Ives School of Painting. In 2009-10 she received instruction in printmaking from the Handprint Studios, at Trewidden Gardens, Penzance, subsequently pursuing a concentrated period of creating prints using texture, colour and atmosphere in imaginative ways.
In her later years she began to exhibit her paintings widely, and she and Pepe gave generously of their time to charities and art shows in a variety of venues, for the community good.
Pepe Turner was born in London, but evacuated to Somerset the following year. He was married to the painter-printmaker and textile artist, Daphne TURNER (who died in 2019) and together they ran the Carvossa Studio Gallery at Ludgvan. We asked Pepe to summarise his colourful and fun-filled quilt-making career, and he replied:
'My interest in quiltmaking started in 1982 when my wife was becoming increasingly involved with the making and teaching of patchwork, and we were meeting people who had been instrumental in promoting the craft in this country. After making my first quilt I wanted to do more and enjoyed working by hand with traditional methods. The idea of starting a shop to supply fabrics and a classroom to offer tuition became the focus. I greatly enjoyed the whole experience and was soon running the business and giving talks in many places around Cornwall and Devon.
We also staged quilt exhibitions in village halls, churches, the Jamieson Library at Newmill, and the gallery at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro. There were very few male quiltmakers so this was an added interest in what is predominately a female craft. We met many people during this time and have made many life-time friends. It has become a way of life!'
Barbara Turner Jones graduated from Exeter College of Art with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art. She moved to Cornwall in the early 1970s and has a studio in the St Ives area. Her work is in collections in the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA.
An American artist who stayed briefly in St Ives, her piece included in the 1932 Touring Show was priced at £200 - and must have been substantial; her landscapes were considered powerful works. By 1934 her address was in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Born in South Africa, he signed in as a guest of William Holt Yates TITCOMB at the St Ives Arts club in December 1904, but does not appear to have lived locally until the 1920s. Although he exhibited in STISA from 1929, his modernity was often considered crude, and he was not invited to become a member until April 1931. He was then living at Wheel Speed in Carbis Bay with his wife. He appears to have moved away shortly after 1933, and by 1940 was living in Totnes, Devon.
Judith Tutin was born in Wexford, Ireland. She completed a BA in Art and Design Education at the National College of Art and Design, with painting as a chosen studio practice. Subsequently she gained an MA in Art in Education at the Institute of Education, University College London.
Her painting is semi-abstract, influenced by abstract expressionism, especially the work of Rothko and the idea of colour as a spiritual experience. She searches for a light source in her work, an emergence of light from layers of texture and structure. She is strongly influenced by religious painting and the richness of art history's Catholic heritage. Visually she takes note of decaying buildings, the passage of time, nature acting on surfaces where art stands the test of time. Nowhere is this more explicit than in Italy where she has frequently travelled. She is a practising Catholic and has undertaken may commissions for religious purposes. She has also presented a paper on The Body in Catholic Art at the iJade conference and continues to have a keen academic interest in this topic in Art History.
She has been a secondary school art teacher throughout her 20 year career and is currently Head of the Creative Faculty at Truro High School for Girls, where she has tried new skills such as Cyanotype Photography and Puppetry. She has worked extensively in Cyanotype since 2017 which now makes up a significant portion of her art practice.
She had no connections with Cornwall when she and her husband decided to move to the county in 2010, but found it a 'home from home' with its similarity to South East Ireland. The coastal landscape of Cornwall, the Celtic history and the vibrant art scene have made Judith feel very settled here.
A painter, printmaker, teacher and formidably talent draughtsman who made his home on the Lizard peninsula. Vince Tutton enjoyed a distinguished career, from his early days in Wales, later living and working in Italy and Spain. His work was widely appreciated, developing over the years into a powerful and intense form of abstraction whose complexity was expressed by the use of writing, and many layers of paint, pastel and charcoal.
In spring of 2019 a posthumous collection of 60 of Tutton's works was shown at Falmouth Art Gallery, curated by his daughter Jayne and her mother Irene.