NEWLYN ART GALLERY features in the memories of many local residents, as well as thousands living further afield.
Last week The Cornishman reported that people's recollections of the famous building would form a central part of its new exhibition.
The show, marking 100 years since the death of its founder John Passmore Edwards, will include a living archive of memories of the New Road gallery and those connected to it.
One of those who recall Newlyn in a different era is Cornishman correspondent Douglas Williams.
"I suppose I am one of the very few surviving models of Stanhope Forbes, whose imprint is to the forefront of the Newlyn gallery," he writes.
"As 'father' of the art colony his name and images helped make the fishing village famed around the world.
"It was in the 1930s, as a young lad in pale blue shirt and grey shorts, that I went up Paul Hill a few times to his home at Higher Faughan, where I stood with a young girl and his gardener alongside a handcart-wheelbarrow in his garden.
"This scene was to appear as the foreground of his 'Fountain Tavern' painting, with that magnificent tree, at the top of Causewayhead at Penzance.
Icon
"Sadly the tree is gone and the cottages in the background became the site of St Clare Flats, but Bullock Market Terrace and the 'Fountain' remain.
"Forbes was an old man then and an icon of Newlyn artistic history. After the war years I recall the diminutive figure of writer Wallace Nichols (always wearing his tammy) as curator there. I came to know him more when he was co-director with Ernest Pierce of the Cornwall Shakespearean Festival. Some of us were enthusiastic teen-age actors when it was founded in the open-air theatre at Penlee Park, with a remarkable group of local thespians who included the celebrated matinee idol of the West End in the 1930s, Harry Welchman, who had come to West Cornwall in retirement after his famous seasons in The Desert Song and other musicals. He was a wonderful Malvolio in our Twelfth Night.
"Wallace was an expert in the spoken word (although he stammered a little) and we learned he had helped such giants of the stage as John Gielgud and Edith Evans. He was at the gallery for some years and was a gentle, shy personality.
"Things brightened and prospered at Newlyn gallery under the lively personality of Michael Canney and Mr Smith and it was given a tremendous boost by the John Halkes era with its wider publicity and accent on the Newlyn School. It is a curious fact that today the centre for the Newlyn School and its wonderfully acclaimed paintings is at Penzance.
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN