Lomography

St.Ives -Roy Ray

Turner was the first of the most well regarded artists to visit St Ives during 1811 tour, making sketches of the town and harbour. By the 1870's St.Ives with its maritime light attracted artists for a variety of reasons; locality, unique environment and the peculiar social conditions that existed existed as a result of the authority of England being completely alien to the original Cornish culture as well as (then) being a long way off (London 300 miles, Exeter 100miles). This appealed to artists from many similar cultures who felt less at ease in mainland England.. This ebb and flow of artists increased with the Great Western Railway in 1877 at which time there ware close to a hundred studios of mixed providence, some clustered around Porthmeor Beach. Whistler spent the winter of 1834 in St Ives and was joined by Walter Sickert. During the 1920's and 30's the towns residents included John Park and Borlase Smart who was instrumental in the establishment of the St.Ives Society of Artists in 1928. That year Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood made a day trip to the town and found the painter Alfred Wallis almost completely obscured to all but the residents in his locale.Having began painting in his advanced years upon bits of wood and offcuts of packaging Wallis was considered to be a great find for the two passionate artists.