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Visit Penlee House & Museum

Penlee House is a Gallery, Museum, Cafe and Shop. Situated within Penlee Park, a space to reflect and great for family visits.

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A space for exhibitions & events

Alongside our Exhibition programme we run a variety of community events and workshops. The Newlyn School and Social history galleries change often. Find out what’s on.

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A space to learn

Penlee House is committed to lifelong learning. We run workshops for all age groups and offer a school workshop programme.

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A space for all

Built in 1865, as the home of the Branwell family. Penlee House is home to many paintings by members of the Newlyn School. It is also home to the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society collection.

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You can search and browse our collections online. We also have a section dedicated to the Newlyn School.

Ella and Charles Naper: Art and Life in Lamorna

15 November 2003 until 10 January 2004

Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, is the venue for the launch of a special new exhibition and book celebrating the life and work of a couple who, though relatively unheard of, helped to define the Lamorna art colony in its heyday, ‘Art Nouveau’ jeweller Ella, and her husband, the painter Charles Naper. 

Ella Naper, née Champion, had learned handicrafts at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts under Frederick Partridge, and later joined his jewellery workshop at Branscombe in south Devon.  There she developed and reformed her feel for Art Nouveau.

Ella met and married a young architect and painter, Charles Naper.  They moved to Lamorna in 1912, where Charles built a house, Trewoofe, at the head of the valley.  They soon became part of the artistic circle, making lifelong friendships with, in particular, Laura and Harold Knight, ‘Lamorna’ Birch and Harold and Gertrude Harvey. 

The Napers appeared in several notable paintings.  Laura Knight’s celebrated Spring, on loan to Penlee House from Tate Britain for this exhibition, depicts the couple set in the Cornish landscape, beneath a spectacular rainbow.  Ella also modelled as the nude in Laura Knight’s Self and Nude (National Portrait Gallery, London), and was featured in Harold Harvey’s painting, The Critics (Birmingham City Art Gallery).

In the early 1920s, Ella set up the Lamorna Pottery with Kate Westrup, mainly producing commercial ware, but also beautifully modelled ceramic figures of herself and Laura Knight.  But her enduring artistic legacy is her Art Nouveau jewellery, today highly regarded by connoisseurs and collectors.

Charles Naper, less gregarious than his wife, was an accomplished landscape painter who latterly concentrated on the geometry of cliffs and the patterns and shapes of rock formations.  Easily discouraged, though, he rarely exhibited, sold little and in his eccentric last years put the majority of his paintings onto a bonfire.  Anyone seeing the remaining paintings in this exhibition, which are breathtaking, must feel inclined to mourn for what we all lost in this terrible act of self-vandalism.

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Visit Us

Penlee House is a beautiful art gallery and museum, set within sub-tropical gardens, with a great café.

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Exhibitions

Our vibrant exhibition programme celebrates the nationally important art and history of West Cornwall.

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Learning

From school visits to family activities, talks and walks, there are plenty of learning opportunities at Penlee House.

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Our Café

Enjoy a delicious lunch or coffee at the Orangery Café, with its sunny terrace overlooking the park.

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