October 2024

St Ives is a pretty coastal village in Cornwall with deep roots in the emergence of Marine Art, Troika Pottery and Crysede Textiles.

St Ives Museum

St Ives Museum started in 1926 on the founding principle of, “Gathering up the fragments lest they be lost.” This was at a time when the town was on the cusp of change; the fishing and mining industries were all but dying out. Decades of overfishing in Cornwall coupled with the closure of the tin mines meant the outflow of minerals into the sea which had once provided a rich food source for pilchards was no more.

The fishing season would begin in August with a cry across the town of Hevva! signalling that a shoal of silvery pilchards was in sight. The Seine net used to catch them was so vast (350m) that forty men were required to carry it down from the lofts to the big red boat waiting in the harbour to ‘shoot” it into the sea. Once caught the haul of pilchards was transferred into smaller tuck nets and taken to shore in boats called dippers.

It was the famous Victorian novelist and travel writer Wilkie Collins who introduced avid readers to the thrills of Cornish folklore in his Rambles Beyond Railways; Notes in Cornwall Taken A Foot, published in 1851. Collins, who was also a keen collector of statistics, records that in 1850 St Ives exported 22,000 barrels of pilchards, known as hogheads, each containing up to 3,000 fish.

With high demand from France and Spain, the pilchard trade was labour intensive demanding large numbers of the town’s population. Women and their eldest daughters, known as salt maidens, worked side by side to salt and stack layers of fish, up to four feet high, in twelve hour shifts for a few pence per hour. The salting process took around five weeks during which time the pilchards were pressed under great weights to extract their oil.

St Ives Museum was a pilchard packing factory in the 1840’s, and today retains a detailed history of the Cornish pilchard industry told through artefacts and visual stories. In 1847, the total exports from Cornwall was 122 million fish, which cause the storytellers to reflect on man’s greed, rather than man’s need. However, It is unlikely the hardworking townsfolk of St Ives could have envisaged that a part of their crowded, noisy and smelly workplace would be dedicated to preserving the stories of their rich cultural imprint. 

Capturing the Light

The Museum’s personable curator Andy Smith and his fact-toting deputy Peter Garrett are on a mission to tell the true story of St Ives’s transformation from a small fishing village into an internationally known artists colony. They are ably assisted by Cornish Art Historian and author David Tovey. A number of his superb personal collection of oil paintings make up the Museum’s current exhibition Capturing the Light 1885-1914. His book, Pioneers of St Ives Art at Home and Abroad 1889-1914 is a richly illustrated companion to it. 

This is the second in a cycle of four exhibitions at St Ives Museum which documents the emergence and evolution of the colony as it has never been seen before. Far too often, the well-funded art establishments date its beginning to the mid-20th Century. But, as many of the glorious light infused paintings here demonstrate, its origins go further back in time. 

Last years exhibition Discovering St Ives 1830-1890, won the Cornish Exhibition of the Year (small museum). This year, Capturing the Light celebrates the heyday of the marine artists who travelled from as far afield as Australia, Canada and America to paint the wonderfully wild scenery and magnificent light en plein air.

The arrival of the railways in 1877 had made access to rural areas easier. Turner’s visit to St Ives yielded preparatory sketches of the area, but no finished pieces. Whistler arrived in the spring of 1884 with the Camden Town Impressionist Walter Sickert, and the Australian born marine painter Mortimer Mempes in tow. Whistler produced several gentle oils of beach scenes from his vantage point above St Ives Bay.

But, it was the French painter Emile-Louis Vernier who put St Ives on the international art map. Inexorably drawn to the light, he completed around ninety paintings here between 1884-1887. When he returned to Paris with his paintings, two were exhibited at the Paris Salon. His poignant images of blue oceans and skies, red sailing boats, and calling lighthouses drew keen attention to the little fishing village.

St Ives School

Albert Julius Olssen was born in Islington of Swedish and English descent. He was a self-trained artist and expert mariner who moved to St Ives in 1887. Together with the Australian painter Louis Grier, and later Algernon Talmage, he founded its first School of Painting. Olssen married a local woman and lived here until 1914. Of his many shimmering light-reflecting oil paintings is Moonlight, St Ives (above left), ia just one of his fine pictures on show here. During the First World War, his posting gave him the opportunity to paint warships in action. Olssen was accepted into the Royal Academy of Arts in 1920. 

Another of the outstanding paintings on show is Charles Adrian Stokes’s wistful Marazion Marshes (left). Stokes moved to the St Ives colony in 1886 with his wife Marianne Stokes, who was also a well respected painter. The Australian born Richard Hayley Lever joined the colony in 1889. It is his marine paintings of ox-blood red sail boats and his Sunset Over St Ives (above right) on display here that exemplify the luminescence and rich colours of this now iconic small village.  The Candian Harry Britton also visited.the colony many times to produce his glowing painting of red sails in the harbour (top of page).

Of course, it would be folly to omit Patrick Heron, Barbara Hepworth, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Ben Nicholson, Mary and Romilly Fedden, and a visit by Mark Rothko from the pool of great artists who lived and worked in St Ives. But, it is the slew of talented painters that came before them who are deservedly showcased here. The Museum also has a wonderful display of photographs that show many of the later artists at work. 

Troika Pottery

The increasingly well known and collectable Troika pottery started life in the St Ives Museum building in 1963.  It was a three-way partnership between Benny Zirota, Lesley Ilsley and Jan Thompson, which lasted until the pottery closed in 1983. Zinota’s grandfather had escaped the violence of the pogroms in Russia dressed as a woman on a troika, a sledge drawn by three horses, hence the name. The museum has a collection of interesting pieces.

Although respectful of the great St Ives studio potter Bernard Leach, Troika potters were briefed to create pots as art without regard for function. To that end, sand off the beach, nail heads and innovative marks were impressed upon the clay. To keep things moving they supplied a stream of household goods to the London stores Heals and Liberty’s, a quirky double cup eggcup being the best example here. At the height of the swinging sixties the profile of Troika was so high that a photograph of The Beatles flicking fag-ash into a Troika ashtray at Abbey Road Studios was circulated by the Press. 

Crysede Silk and Textiles

Another influential craft studio once housed in St Ives Museum is Crysede Silks. It is perhaps not a household name today, but an important one in the world of textiles. The company was founded by Alec Walker, a silk mill owner turned textile designer. He was influenced by Raoul Dufy on a visit to Paris in 1923, who advised him to turn his drawings of local scenes in Cornwall into designs, which he did. Walker’s series of naive, but modern paintings made delightful block prints for his premium hand printed fabrics. His wife Kay designed the dresses, which were sold readymade or just as dress patterns in the big stores or via Creysade’s home and overseas mail order catalogue with thousands of subscribers. 

Crysede became a major employer of women in Cornwall and Walker’s socialist ethics ensured good working conditions and fair wages. St Ives Museum has a collection of original Crysede dresses, purses, scarves, blouses and swatches, set up in the style of shop front display of this colourful brand, much like it would have looked during the 1930’s and 40’s. These vibrant prints have a timeless appeal and also form part of the textile collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and The Royal Museum of Cornwall.

St Ives Museum, Wheal Dream, St Ives. TR26 1PR.https://www.stivesmuseum.co.uk