Newlyn School of Art opens its doors

www.newlynartschool.co.uk

Opening its doors for the first time in September 2011, Newlyn School of Art is a dynamic and innovative art school situated in the heart of the famous artistic colony of Newlyn a few hundred yards from where the Forbes School of Painting was run by Stanhope Forbes, the 'Father' of the Newlyn School of Painters, between 1899 and 1938. 

The school is offering a £5 discount on any of the next year’s short courses if booked online before October 1st 2011.

The Founder and Director of the new School, local artist Henry Garfit has worked for three years on the project and has managed to get a £30,000 Arts Council grant to help with some of the set up costs for the new school. The project was awarded the highest sum available through that fund which is lottery supported. A big achievement in these tough times for the Arts Council. The school is a not for profit organisation and as such all surplus funds go towards future purchases of equipment to expand the resources and facilities of the school. 

The school will create part time work for over 14 local people and much needed facilities for the arts community in regard to Open Access Printmaking, Life Drawing and Professional Development throughout the year. There will also be talks by well known artists and critics every month or two at the school.

The School provides a wide range of high quality and exciting short art courses in disciplines such as painting, drawing, printmaking, stone carving and art history; all taught by some of the most well known artists working in Cornwall today. Including: Neil Pinkett, Jason Walker, Jesse Leroy Smith, Jane Ansell, Mary Crockett, Gareth Edwards, Paul Wadsworth, Rachael Kantaris, Mark Spray, Maggie O’Brien, Sam Bassett, Georgina Hounsome and David Paton.

There is Open Access Printmaking every Friday with supervision by experienced printmakers Mary Crockett and Georgina Hounsome and Evening Life Drawing every Thursday taught by artists Jason Walker, Neil Pinkett and Paul Wadsworth.

One day Art History courses provide a wonderful overview of art created in West Cornwall from the 1880’s through to the present day beginning with a visit and guided tour of Penlee House Gallery to explore art from Newlyn and Lamorna from the 1880’s to the 1920’s. This is followed by a slide presentation and talk provided by Tate St Ives on Modernism in west Cornwall and finally a visit to Newlyn Art Gallery where students will receive a visual overview of some of the award winning contemporary art which is being made in the area today.

The School also provides regular Professional Development workshops through which artists have the opportunity to take part in year round technical and curatorial skills training provided by Newlyn School of Art in association with Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange and Creative Skills.

Newlyn and the Arts

In the early 1880’s many of Britain’s most talented artists began arriving in Newlyn. A number of these artists had trained on the continent and many had spent time in artistic colonies in France.

Newlyn offered these artists similar scenes to those they had painted in Brittany providing them with a wealth of local models and cheap accommodation within a beautiful fishing community which had been untouched by the industrial revolution.

1884 saw the arrival of Stanhope Forbes who would later become known as the emblematic figurehead of the thirty or so painters who made up the ‘Newlyn School’. The term ‘the Newlyn School’ is used to describe this group of early artistic residents of Newlyn who were bound together by their shared belief in the importance of ‘en plein air’ painting and their desire to capture the lives of the local fishing and farming communities.

Other members of the group included significant names such as Walter Langley (credited as the first permanent artist resident in the colony), Elizabeth Forbes (nee Armstrong), Frank Bramley, Henry Scott Tuke, Fred Hall, Norman Garstin, Thomas Cooper Gotch, Frank Wright Bourdillon, Harold Harvey and Percy Craft among many others.

It was largely through submissions to the annual Royal Academy Exhibitions that the Newlyn School painters became so well known, particularly after Stanhope Forbes’ triumph in 1885 with ‘A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’.

So great in number were the artists of the Newlyn School that the Great Western Railway Company was forced to add additional carriages to the Penzance to London train to accommodate the number of submissions to the annual Royal Academy Exhibition by the many artists resident in Newlyn.

In a period of 20 years between 1880 and 1900, over 130 artists spent a proportion of their time working in Newlyn.

In 1899 as the number of artists in Newlyn began to decline Stanhope Forbes and his artist wife Elizabeth set up the Forbes School of Painting, reinvigorating the colony and attracting a new generation of artists to Newlyn including Dod and Ernest Proctor, and in time, Alfred Munnings and Harold and Laura Knight.

'I am delighted to hear of the opening of the Newlyn School of Art some seventy or more years after the Forbes School of Painting closed in 1938. Penlee House Gallery has long seen the potential for the success of such a present day art school, since both local people and visitors to the area who come to Penlee House are often painters themselves who tell us that they use the paintings on show here as a source of inspiration. We have several art groups who travel to us regularly and I am sure that a school of art based in Newlyn would be a real draw to many others. I wish the school every success with its future'. 

Alison Bevan at Penlee House Gallery

‘I am delighted that this project which has been three years in the making has been supported by the Arts Council at a time of such enormous pressure on arts funding throughout the UK. We are looking forward to offering our first course on September 14th 2011 and we aim to provide a great stimulus to the arts community in Cornwall through much needed employment in the area and some really exciting courses taught by some of the best artists working in Cornwall today. By providing both high quality short art courses and classes in professional development for artists we aim to cater to both those people among the annual visitors to West Cornwall who have come to the area because of its long standing reputation for art but also to help the local artistic community to gain access to high quality facilities and help artists gain the skills they need to broaden their artistic practice and support the development of their creative businesses’.
Director/ Founder Henry Garfit

www.newlynartschool.co.uk