In January 2008, Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, is launching the first-ever major retrospective exhibition of one of West Cornwall’s best-loved native talents, Jack Pender. He was born in Mousehole in 1918, and Penlee House is marking what would have been his 90th birthday year with a selected exhibition of around 90 works, covering his long and prolific career.
Jack Pender’s subject-matter was largely his home fishing village of Mousehole, its boats and people. Many other artists have painted this picturesque harbour, but few knew it as intimately as Pender, and his father and grandfather’s fishing boats were regular subjects for his work. As his son, Robin, puts it “his best works reinterpret what he saw about him, making what he painted resonate for the viewer, capturing the juxtaposition of boats and cottages, fishermen and nets. He spoke of finding the essence of a boat, not to just make a pictorially accurate representation of one. Jack’s boats have personality.”
Jack Pender’s profile and status as a well-known and very involved member of the artistic community led to him being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorseth and being featured in more than one BBC documentary – as well as being the ‘star’ of a Special K commercial!
If he had been born anywhere other than West Cornwall, Pender’s cornucopic talent would surely have shone out, but for a Mousehole-man to gain recognition, encircled by some of the greatest artists of the day, was a challenging task. Although he was included in Tate London’s 1985 St Ives survey show and his works feature in many distinguished collections, Pender has not always had the national recognition he deserves. Commercial galleries across the country have shown his work for many years, but this will be the first major exhibition in a public gallery – a long-overdue tribute to one of West Cornwall’s most notable indigenous painters.
The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated book on the painter, written by the distinguished Cornish art critic Frank Ruhrmund and published by Truran, available from Penlee House Gallery & Museum and all good bookshops from 19 January, priced at £8.99 (ISBN 978 185022 220 0). Both exhibition and book have been made possible through sponsorship from David Lay FRICS, the Penzance Auction House, and it is very much hoped that the show and book will finally place Jack Pender, permanently, among the leading Cornish painters.‘Jack Pender: A Tribute’ is on show at Penlee House Gallery & Museum from 19 January to 8 March 2008.
