‘Eyes and No Eyes’ is one of a small handful of major works produced by Frank Bramley during his years in Newlyn. Like his fellow Newlyners, he often depicted harrowing scenes of loss and tragedy, the best known of which are ‘A Hopeless Dawn’ (1888), the iconic interior painting in Tate’s collection, and ‘For Such is the Kingdom of Heaven’ (1891), a vast painting of a child’s funeral procession owned by Aukland Art Gallery, New Zealand.   Eyes and No Eyes is a rare example of a jovial subject: the title is a witticism about the fact that the old salt’s eyesight is hampering him in threading his sail-mending yarn through the eye of his needle, and his two female companions are laughing at his efforts.

This particular painting is one Penlee House has been hoping might come onto the market for quite some time, since it is one of the key Newlyn School pictures by any artist and undoubtedly the most important plein air Frank Bramley painting still available to the market. As Friends may recall, we have borrowed this work on two previous occasions (Frank Bramley exhibition in 1999 and ‘Painting at the Edge: Britain’s Coastal Art Colonies’ in 2005). We had attempted to borrow it again in 2009, for both our ‘Newlyn: A Village in Focus’ exhibition (since it is such a superb depiction of the village with the old harbour and ‘new’ South Pier completed the year it was painted) and for our summer show, ‘Brotherhood of the Palette’, but were informed that it was unavailable and the owner now lived abroad. 

Staff were so thrilled with the new acquisition that it was put on display immediately and is unlikely to leave the walls for long in the future, as it has already become a firm favourite with visitors.   Cards, prints and even tins of pilchards with this image on are available from Penlee House shop.