Lamorna Colony Pioneers

Incorporating more than 60 paintings from public collections such as Tate and the Walker Art Gallery as well as from private collections, this exhibition, Lamorna Colony Pioneers, is overview of the colony from its founding just after the turn of the twentieth century, right through to the 1960s.

The art colony that formed in the Lamorna Valley, four miles west of Newlyn, came into being several decades after those at Newlyn and St Ives, once the granite quarries that had operated there until the late 19th century had begun to close. Elizabeth and Stanhope Forbes used the valley as inspiration both for themselves and for the students of their painting school in the early 20th century.

However, in the decade 1910-1920, the reputation of Lamorna as one of Cornwall’s leading art colonies grew due to the presence of Samuel John ‘Lamorna’ Birch, Laura and Harold Knight, Dod Procter and Alfred Munnings, artists who all went on to become leading Royal Academicians.

Other pioneers from the inter-war years featured in the exhibition will include Frank Gascoigne Heath, Eleanor and Robert Hughes, Stanley Gardiner and Charles Simpson. The exhibition will also include later avant-garde artists such as Hannah Gluckstein, known simply as ‘Gluck’, Marlow Moss, John Armstrong, John Tunnard and Ithell Colquhoun.

The exhibition will be curated in conjunction with David Tovey, who has just published the two volume Lamorna – An Artistic, Social and Literary History.