THE NEWLYN ARTISTS

The tiny fishing port of Newlyn, situated in Mount's Bay in the far west of Cornwall, was first visited by some of the artists who were to form the Nelwyn 'School' (or colony) in 1880.

The painter T. C. Gotch and his wife-to-be, fellow artist Caroline Yates, visited Newlyn in 1880, but the first artist to settle in the village was Walter Langley, who had visited the village in both 1880 and 1881 and finally made Newlyn his home in 1882. Langley and was closely followed by his friend Edwin Harris, a fellow Birmingham Art School student.

In 1884 Stanhope Forbes arrived in Newlyn and wrote to his mother "Newlyn is a sort of English Concarneau and is the haunt of many artists".

Throughout the 1880s, the list of artists associated with the colony grew; in 'The Cornishman' newspaper of the 4th September 1884 it was noted that there were no less than 27 artists residing in Newlyn. These included:-
Frank Wright Bourdillon, Frank Bramley, Percy Craft, William Teulon Blandford Fletcher, Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Thomas Cooper Gotch, Fred Hall, Edwin Harris, Walter Langley, Leghe Suthers, Alexander Chevallier Tayler, Ralph Todd and Henry Scott Tuke. The only woman listed among these early artists was Elizabeth Adela Forbes (nee Armstrong), although Caroline Gotch (nee Yates) was also a fine painter in her own right.

By the end of the century, the group had begun to disperse, with only a small number still living in the Newlyn/Penzance area. Many of the artists had changed the style and composition of their work and their palettes had brightened, although Walter Langley remained true to his original form until his death in Penzance in 1922.

The early days of the Newlyn colony were marked by studio open days in the Meadow area of the village, which held many small studios. 1895 saw the opening of the Newlyn Art Gallery, paid for by Passmore Edwards as a memorial to the 'Cornish Boy Wonder', the portrait painter John Opie. This became the place to see the work by these artists, who hung their work in the gallery prior to sending it for exhibition at the Royal Academy.

The colony was not all work and no play: an annual cricket match was held between the Newlyn and St Ives artists, and amateur dramatics were also popular, with Percy Craft taking the lead in staging these occasions. One such entertainment was 'Lubly Lobengula's Impecunious Impi' where Craft and Langley played the tambourine while Harris, Gotch and others played various characters.

In 1899, Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes opened their School of Painting in Newlyn, with the aim of reinvigorating the colony. This not only attracted many students, including future artistic 'greats' such as Dod and Ernest Procter, but also meant that the village continued to attract more established painters.

Elizabeth Forbes sadly died in 1912 (aged 52), her obituary proclaiming her as 'the Queen of Newlyn'. Her husband, Stanhope, lived on until 1947 however, keeping the core of the colony alive with him through his friendships with fellow artists and his support for young talent.