St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times, it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial emphasis, and the town is now primarily a popular seaside resort, notably achieving the title of Best UK Seaside Town from the British Travel Awards in both 2010 and 2011. St Ives was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1639. St Ives has become renowned for its number of artists. It was named best seaside town of 2007 by The Guardian newspaper.
Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leading figure in the colony of artists who resided in St Ives during the Second World War.
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, in 1980.
Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM was an English painter of abstract compositions, landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in his country.
Sir Terence Ernest Manitou Frost RA was a British abstract artist, who worked in Newlyn, Cornwall. Frost was renowned for his use of the Cornish light, colour and shape to start a new art movement in England. He became a leading exponent of abstract art and a recognised figure of the British art establishment.
The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in St Ives, Cornwall preserves the 20th-century sculptor Barbara Hepworth's studio and garden much as they were when she lived and worked there. She purchased the site in 1949 and lived and worked there for 26 years until her death in a fire on the premises in 1975.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE was one of the foremost British abstract artists, a member of the influential Penwith Society of Arts.
George Peter Lanyon was a British painter of landscapes leaning heavily towards abstraction. Lanyon was one of the most important artists to emerge in post-war Britain. Despite his early death at the age of forty-six he achieved a body of work that is amongst the most original and important reappraisals of modernism in painting to be found anywhere. Combining abstract values with radical ideas about landscape and the figure, Lanyon navigated a course from Constructivism through Abstract Expressionism to a style close to Pop. He also made constructions, pottery and collage.
Sir Alan Bowness CBE was a British art historian, art critic, and museum director. He was the director of the Tate Gallery between 1980 and 1988.
John Clayworth Spencer Wells was an artist and maker of relief constructions, associated with the St Ives group.
The St Ives School refers to a group of artists living and working in the Cornish town of St Ives. The term is often used to refer to the 20th century groups which sprung up after the First World War around such artists as Borlase Smart, however there was considerable artistic activity there from the late 19th Century onwards.
Denis Adeane Mitchell was an English abstract sculptor who worked mainly in bronze and wood. A prominent member of the St Ives group of artists, he worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth for many years.
Kate Nicholson was a British painter and the daughter of artist Ben Nicholson and his first wife, the artist Winifred Nicholson.
Sven Paul Berlin was an English painter, writer and sculptor. He is now best known for his controversial fictionalised autobiography The Dark Monarch, which was withdrawn just days after publication in 1962 following legal action. The book became the theme of an exhibition in Tate St Ives in autumn 2009 when it was re-published.
Alexander Mackenzie was a British abstract artist, an active member of the Penwith Art Society and Newlyn Art Gallery and educator. Mackenzie was born on 9 April 1923 in Liverpool. He was married to Coralie Crockett and the couple had three daughters, Pat, Althea and Rachel.
Margo Maeckelberghe nee Margaret Oates Try was a Cornish Bard and artist.
Jack Pender (1918–1998) was a British artist.
Jeanne du Maurier was an English artist. She was the third daughter of Sir Gerald du Maurier and Muriel Beaumont, and sister of writers Daphne and Angela du Maurier.
John Milne (1931–1978) was an English abstract sculptor who worked mainly in bronze and wood but also aluminium and stone. A prominent member of the St Ives group of artists, he was a pupil and worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth for two years.
The Palais de Danse is a former cinema, dance hall, ballet school and auction house in St Ives, Cornwall which was a studio for sculptor and artist Barbara Hepworth from 1961 until her death in 1975. After her death, the Palais was kept by her family until it was donated to Tate in 2015. In 2020, Historic England designated it a Grade II listed building.
