Arts West of Eden
Giles Auty
St Ives 1939-64
(Tate Gallery till 14 April)
Cornwall 1925-75 (Parkin Gallery till 16 March) Even today, in spite of its skin-rash of
tourist shops and ugly quayside de- velopments, St Ives remains one of Bri- tain's prettiest seaside towns. A visitor's first glimpse, descending by road from Car- bis Bay or approaching along the branch railway from St Erth, is still likely to be unforgettable. Few English towns are bles- sed with such an interesting layout, such uniformity of colour and building materials or so benign a climate.
While the town retains some of its for- mer charm, the full extent of its unspoiled glory, 100 years ago, when Whistler and Sicken spent a winter there, surpasses im- agining. For these two and the many hun- dreds of artists who have followed them, St Ives must have seemed, at first, another Eden. Brilliant light, spectacular coastal scenery, cheap accommodation, available studios . . . what more, other than recogni- tion of course, could the artist desire? However, a history of feuding and rivalry, no less than of companionship and sup- port, shows that serpents were also present in this artists' Eden, especially during the Period covered by the current exhibition. From around 1900, the St Ives art com- munity maintained a roughly parallel de- velopment with the nearby Newlyn colony, Which had previously been pre-eminent. Painting, as practised by good journeymen such as Borlase Smart tended to be in an English variant of the plein-air style. It was left to Alfred Wallis, former fisherman and scrap merchant, who began his remark- able, untutored career at the age of 70, to provide the exception to this pictorial tendency. His extraordinary images were spotted by Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood on a visit to St Ives in 1928 and were to exert a powerful influence on these and Other artists who subsequently collected and admired them. Unfortunately this did not prevent Wallis himself ending his days In the Madron workhouse. Ben Nicholson
and the sculptress Barbara Hepworth, his second wife, moved to West Cornwall in 1939 and it is from this convenient starting point that the present exhibition begins. Both were to become major forces in the area.
As prime organiser of the current exhibi- tion and compiler of a comprehensive chronology, Dr David Brown, of the Tate's Modern Collection staff, deserves congra- tulating on his efforts. Dr Brown has long been a passionate advocate of St Ives artists such as Roger Hilton. Likewise David Lewis, whose lengthy catalogue memoir mercifully improves on an over- written start, contributes his personal en- thusiasm and admiration to our under- standing of the epoch. Obviously both pro- tagonists remain bewitched by St Ives or by its memories, but is the picture they pre- sent valid in any broader historical con- text? I cannot help wondering what present-day art students will make of all the acres of Abstract Expressionist art, now that the pendulum has swung back so strongly towards figuration.
The timing of major exhibitions such as this is seldom a matter of chance and usual- ly has the effect, foreseen or otherwise, of advancing exhibitors' work a notch or two up the 'art-historical' or sale-room ladders. In the past, I have queried the Tate's prop- ensity for trying to create 'unquestionable' Modern Art history through use of their resources. In this instance, it would be wrong to imagine that the history of St Ives art is now satisfactorily buried, even under the impressive weight of the current cata- logue, since the latter leaves far too many questions unanswered. Indeed, if the period in question were the artistic triumph suggested, why has it left behind such a dispiriting aftermath, from which art in West Cornwall has never recovered? The prominent, Cornish-born artist Peter Lanyon felt that the hands which once wielded so much artistic power in St Ives held on too tightly, too long, and strangled growth.
The current exhibition comprises over 270 works, including paintings, drawings, sculpture and very impressive pottery. Sensibly a rough chronology is pursued which sees Nicholson's early work juxta- posed with that of Christopher Wood and Alfred Wallis. What emerges, curiously enough, is the extraordinary sense of struc- ture and certainty to be found in the untu- tored Wallis when compared with the altogether feebler pictorial constructions of the sophisticated Wood. However, no such criticism could be levelled at Nicholson who- travelled from artistic promise to artis- tic strength on the back of his sure and concise draughtsmanship. His sparing use of strong colour could be witty, lyrical or pictorially ravishing; indeed, his artistic elegance alone sets him apart from his im- itators and establishes his rightful place as a major British artist. By contrast, Barbara Hepworth, who also drew beautifully, occasionally became ponderous in sculp- ture such as 'River Form' of 1965, hand- some materials and finish failing to make up for an absence of sculptural vitality. The association which she and Nicholson en- joyed with artists such as Gabo and Mon- drian and the critic Herbert Read gave them direct links with an earlier generation of Modern movements in art — notably Constructivism, De Stijl and Surrealism than those influencing some of their young- er colleagues. Significantly, at least one of these movements, De Stijl, contained ele- ments of a dogmatic and blinkered uto- pianism which has subsequently served art ill.
Since I first visited St Ives in 1957, lived there for a year in 1959, and spent the remaining four years covered by the scope of this exhibition in nearby Penzance, I know or knew most of the remaining ex- hibitors. This being so, I was unreasonably surprised at how clearly the paintings of each reveal the precise character differ- ences of their originators. Bryan Wynter's work instantly recalled for me the kindness and wry humour of an artist famous for complex practical jokes played on contem- poraries such as the poet W. S. Graham. Yet what more moving tributes could a friend pay than the poems (reproduced in the exhibition catalogue) that 'Jock' Gra- ham wrote about two of his artist friends, Wynter and Hilton, who died within a fort- night of each other almost exactly ten years ago? The poems of W. S. Graham, unlike the works of many of his painter friends, have been disgracefully neglected during the past 30 years.
The choice of most of the exhibitors in St Ives 1939-64 was relatively predictable, although experience suggests there are bound to be fierce arguments about the prominence given to some and about the omission of others. Much seems to depend on the artist's ability at self-advertisement. For this reason I feel that painters such as Tony O'Malley and Karl Weschke have been seriously under-represented, given the supposed nature of the exhibition, while others who came to St Ives for what they could get out of it rather than contri- bute should have been replaced by such as Robert Brennan, Roy Conn and Jeffrey Harris — even if the latter now lives in Australia. I also suspect the public may ponder what Bob Law's 'field studies' blank paper with a line around the edge has to do with the art of St Ives or any- where else, but they would be foolish to expect a satisfactory answer. Meanwhile an infinitely more interesting ex-St Ives artist, well regarded by Nicholson, who pro- duced a huge body of works in Cornwall, does not earn even a catalogue mention: J. A. Peace.
Historically most of the work in the cur- rent exhibition belongs to a time when artists still believed unquestioningly in the evolutionary 'progress' of modern art. The consequent self-righteous exclusion of any- thing failing to conform to their unreal canons was therefore as inevitable as it has since seemed ironic, given the self-same artists' earlier complaints about misunder- standing and exclusion by so-called tradi- tionalist factions.
Those seeking a wider and more liberal selection of less gargantuan art from Corn- wall will find their needs well met at Parkin Gallery (11 Motcomb St, SW1) where an exhibition entitled Cornwall 1925-75 is in progress.
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