Featured Artists

Newlyn is a small fishing port lying about a mile and a half from Penzance, on the south coast of Cornwall’s Penwith peninsula.

The area’s spectacular scenery has attracted visiting artists since the early 19th century. In the 1880s, numerous British painters began to arrive in Newlyn, many of whom had trained in Paris or Antwerp. Most had also spent time painting in Brittany. In Newlyn they found a similar source of inspiration, but closer to home and with a direct rail link to London.

Like Brittany, Newlyn offered scenes and lives scarcely touched by the industrial revolution, with plentiful, cheap accommodation and willing models. Soon, a host of artists settled, forming the colony known as the Newlyn School.

Although the Newlyn School as a unified artistic movement ceased to exist in the early 20th century, the area remains a vibrant art colony to this day, and many hundreds of artists have made the area their home at some point. For a searchable database of artists associated with this area, whether or not they were part of the Newlyn School, visit the Cornwall Artists Index website (created by West Cornwall Art Archive).

You can also download Every Corner Was A Picture, featuring 165 artists of Newlyn and the Newlyn Art Colony from 1880-1900.

Lamorna, just along the coast from Newlyn, had its own colony of artists, dating from the early 1900s to the 1940s.

Penlee House’s collection also features work by West Cornwall artists not associated with the Newlyn School.

We want to hear about your paintings! If you have a Newlyn School painting or other Cornish work from the period 1880 to 1940, we would love to know about it. All information supplied is treated with the utmost confidentiality and never shared with any third party without express permission, but it is of great help to our Curators to know about privately-held paintings. If you would be willing to share information about a painting you own, please fill in our Paintings Database Form and send it, together with a snapshot of the painting, to Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Morrab Road, Penzance TR18 4HE. Alternatively, email this information to [email protected] where it will be passed to our Curator for confidential filing.

We look forward to hearing for you.

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West Cornwall Artists (c.1880 – c.1940)

Artists