David Tovey - Cornish Art Historian
The Cornish Art Gallery - Paintings for sale
I have been collecting Cornish art since the 1980s and every time I embark on a new piece of research, I find myself drawn to paintings by artists that I am researching. This is particularly the case when I am curating an exhibition, as the only way to guarantee that a painting coming up at auction is going to be available for the exhibition is to buy it yourself! This means that my collection is now overflowing and it really is time to start downsizing. Accordingly, it is with some considerable regret that I am placing the following works on the market. Further information about the relevant artist and further images of the relevant painting can be found by clicking on the title or the image. Additional photos can be supplied and each work will come with my full Dictionary note on the relevant artist.
If interested, please keep looking at this page, as it will take me some time to load up all that is on offer. You are of course always welcome to view the work in the flesh here in Broadwoodwidger - just a mile off the A30 on the Devon / Cornwall border.
David Tovey
The Return of the Fleet, St Ives - Early Morning (RA 1902)
oil on canvas, 60 x 89 cms
signed bottom left
SOLD
This Royal Academy exhibit is without doubt Barlow's finest depiction of the harbour at St Ives and it still is framed in its magnificent ornate original gilt scroll frame, no doubt from Lanhams. Both painting and frame have been cleaned.
Beatrice Bright ASWA (1861-1946)
Sunset, Porthmeor Bay, St Ives
oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cms (framed 82 x 62 cms)
signed bottom right
£950
An attractive sunset scene, in an impressive frame, by this successful student of Julius Olsson, whose work is held by a number of public galleries - see Art UK website.
Charles David Jones Bryant ROI RBA (1883-1937)
a pair, oil on board, each 19 x 24 cms
£1,700 each or
£3,000 the pair
This delightful pair of small oils of the harbour were originally part of the famous Trehayes collection before I acquired them. Bryant, who became Australia's leading marine painter, was a student of Olsson in St Ives in the years 1911-14 - in fact, he described himself as Olsson's last student. He spent various later periods in St Ives as well, with a number of his St Ives paintings from the early 1920s being in Australian public collections, whilst most of his mid-1930s RA exhibits, when he joined STISA, were also St Ives scenes.
Frederick T W Cook RWA (1907-1982)
The Smuggler's Cottage and The Three Pilchards Inn, Polperro
a pair of gouaches, 24 x 34 cms, (framed 44 x 54 cms)
£110 each or
£190 the pair
Frederick Cook was one of the few long-term residents of Polperro, living there from 1947 until his death in 1982. He painted numerous depictions of the harbour and the town, always with a strong decorative impulse. Curving lines were central to striking designs, whilst the overall colour scheme, which could be merely a monotone, was enlivened by spots of bright colour, normally reserved for the hulls of the fishing boats.
Edward Tuckett Daniell (1853-1913)
oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cms, (framed 60 x 70 cms)
signed bottom right
£320
A most unusual naive painting from the 1870s showing the ill-fated wooden pier, included in the 2018 Bude exhibition St Ives - The New Pier - New Perspectives.
Professor Rudolf Hellwag (1867-1942)
oil on canvas, 29 x 39 cms (framed 37 x 47 cms)
signed lower right
£275
Hellwag was an Austrian artist, who lived in St Ives from 1900-2, during which time he studied marine painting, and continued to visit until 1910. He later settled in Germany, where he became a highly regarded art teacher. This work is a sketch for a painting that was illustrated in The Studio magazine in 1906, and it shows the timber wharves that were constructed at the entrance to Hayle Estuary. Hellwag was well-known for his modern approach to painting and this work is boldly painted in a high tone.
Thomas Oliver Hume (c.1833-1917)
St Ives Bay (possibly RA 1888)
oil on canvas,
SOLD
A fascinating depiction of a family at work above St Ives, with views over the town and out to Godrevy, with typical 'Newlyn School' grey tonality. Hume exhibited at the Royal Academy 24 times and this is most probably his Royal Academy exhibit of 1888.
George Herbert McCord ANA (1848-1909)
oil on canvas, 50 x 75 cms, (framed 80 x 105 cms)
signed and dated 1906
£3,950
McCord, who visited St Ives with his sister in 1906, was a highly-regarded American tonalist painter and an Associate of the National Academy of Design. This is the only known St Ives painting from that visit and depicts the arrival of the fishing fleet in the middle of the night with lanterns in their bows - an event which Folliott Stokes described as one worth making a special trip to see and as colourful as a Venetian festa. It is a typically atmospheric piece,and is housed in a magnificent frame.
oil on canvas, 46 x 60 cms (framed 68 x 78 cms)
£800
An attractive marine looking from Clodgy via Man's Head to The Island, St Ives by one of the leading figures in the St Ives landscape and marine section, who exhibited over sixty times at the Royal Academy.
John Mogford RI ROI (1821-1885)
A Break in the Clouds - Crossing the Bar - St Ives
oil on canvas, 48 x 78 cms
signed bottom right
old label on back with title and artist's address
£1,950
In addition to capturing a moment of high drama as a barque is swept before a fierce storm, this painting is of great historical interest, for it records the existence of a dangerous sand bar at the entrance to St Ives harbour and also depicts the ill-fated wooden pier in the course of disintegration.
Peter Reading (1933-2002)
Woodland Path in Winter
pastel, 45 x 35 cms (framed 63 x 50 cms)
£275
One of several atmospheric tree paintings by Peter Reading that I acquired from STISA exhibitions, shortly before his death, when I was researching the history of the Society. A delightful work.
Hugh Edward Ridge RSMA (1899-1976)
oil on canvas, 34 x 44 cms (framed 44 x 54 cms)
signed lower right
£325
Ridge was a leading figure in St Ives art in the 1950s and 1960s, and continued the close association between STISA and the Royal Society of Marine Artists, where he was a member and exhibited over 100 works. This is a sun-filled depiction of a variety of vessels in St Ives harbour, having additional vitality due to Ridge's use of the palette knife.
Hugh Edward Ridge RSMA (1899-1976)
watercolour and ink, 20 x 30 cms (framed 37 x 48cms)
signed lower right
£140
An intricate depiction of the large, attractive green at Blisland on Bodmin Moor, which indicates that the village had Saxon origins, by one of St Ives' leading representational artists from the 1950s and 1960s.
Charles Walter Simpson (1885-1971)
mixed media on board, 53 x 72 cms
signed bottom right
£2,750
This is one of the very best of Simpson's Wild Bird series that he worked on from 1910 to 1920, when he showed the series of some 80 works at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Plymouth City Art Gallery (part of the Mayflower centenary celebrations).
Theodor Alexander Weber (1838-1907)
St Ives, Cornwall (late 1870s)
oil on canvas, 57 x 86 cms, signed bottom right
£4,500
A large atmospheric painting by an early German visitor to Cornwall and the only work I know that features the ill-fated wooden pier at its full length
St Ives from Porthminster Beach c.1860
Watercolour and pencil, heightened with touches of bodycolour, 49.5 x 71.7 cms
signed bottom left
£2,900
A large watercolour from the early 1860s by a much admired Bristol watercolourist, George Wolfe, with fascinating detail of Porthminster Beach, where seine boats were stored out of season, and the view across to the harbour and The Island.
