Two exhibitions celebrating the Cornish links of one of Europe’s foremost artistic couples will run concurrently at Penlee House Gallery & Museum and the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro from 19 September to 28 November this year.
Initiated by Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Utmost Fidelity is the first retrospective exhibition of Austrian-born artist Marianne Stokes (1855-1927) and her husband, English landscape painter Adrian Scott Stokes RA (1854-1935).
The couple had a very strong connection with Cornwall, as they moved to Carbis Bay in 1886 and both became leading figures in the St Ives’ artistic colony of the day. Four years after their arrival, Adrian Stokes became the first President of the St Ives Art Club, and both he and Marianne showed at the seminal Whitechapel exhibition of Cornish art in 1902, the catalogue for which was written by their friend Norman Garstin, the renowned Newlyn School painter.
Marianne Stokes, née Preindlsberger, began her artistic career studying art in Munich; her talent was recognised early and won her prize money that enabled her to travel and study in France, where she met Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck, who was to become a close friend. Together they sought out the right places for ‘plein air’ social realism and were attracted to the thriving art colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany. It was here that Marianne met her future husband, Adrian; the couple were married in 1884.
Born in Southport, Lancashire, in 1854, Adrian had been working as a cotton broker when his artistic talent was noticed. He studied at the Royal Academy from 1872 – 5, and exhibited there from 1876. He travelled to France in 1876, living there for most of the following decade, spending time in Fontainebleau, Concarneau and Normandy as well as Pont Aven. He and Marianne also travelled to other parts of Europe, spending their honeymoon in Italy and later visiting Ireland and Denmark before settling in St Ives.
Marianne’s work will be exhibited at Penlee House Gallery and Museum. Considered one of the leading women artists in Britain of her time, her work from the 1880s shows a great deal of similarity with that of her Newlyn counterpart, Elizabeth Forbes, and like her too she went on to develop different styles and subjects. In the 1890s, Stokes began to paint biblical and medieval subjects redolent of the Renaissance masters. She also experimented with different media, often using gesso and tempera; so adept was she at the latter that she became a member of the Society of Painters in Tempera.
Adrian Stokes’ work, which will be exhibited at the Royal Cornwall Museum, demonstrates a fascination with atmospheric effects shown in dramatic skylines, such as those seen in Upland and Sky (1886). He later moved to a more decorative style as seen in works such as Islands of the Adriatic.
‘Marianne and Adrian were a fascinating couple of their day,’ said Magdalen Evans, the couple’s great-great niece and curator of Utmost Fidelity. ‘Marianne’s Austrian heritage encouraged them to visit Europe for long stretches which clearly influenced their work. They both captured the culture of many countries they visited – Adrian through his landscapes and Marianne in her portraiture.
‘The retrospective draws examples of their work from a range of both public and private collections. Perhaps most well-known is ‘Madonna and Child’ by Marianne Stokes which adorned the Christmas first class stamp in 2005 and comes from Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s collection. Significantly it represents a group of works painted in tempera which combines her interest in religious and folk art.’
