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Barbara Hepworth at work on 'Three forms (offering)'
© Bowness Hepworth Estate
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The St Ives Art Colony: 1880-2004 |
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The town once more became a vibrant artistic centre with its private galleries and painting schools. There was less understanding from the local community of the art itself, but the ‘bohemian’ lifestyle of many of the artists and writers provided a lively background to a community which had still not discovered an effective economic replacement for its century’s old fishing industry.
With London still recovering from the war, the artists of St Ives became the nucleus of a unique and significant British modern art movement which formed close links with the New York abstract expressionists. 
Crystal clear views |
During the 1950s and early 1960s the majority of paintings and sculpture shown world-wide through the auspices of the British Council and the Arts Council were produced by artists from the area.
The landscape-based style of painting, however, began to be eclipsed in the 1960s by the ascendancy of the pop art movement in London, and St Ives’ dominance declined. The deaths in 1975 of Barbara Hepworth, Bryan Wynter and Roger Hilton (born 1911) appeared to herald the end of an era.
The St Ives art colony was almost forgotten. An ambitious plan to create a public collection of St Ives art, in a space adjacent to the Penwith Gallery in the fishermens’ quarter of the town in 1976, foundered due to lack of funding and high interest rates, and it was closed down in 1980. The principle legacy from the post-war era was the opening to the public of the studio and garden of the late Dame Barbara Hepworth in 1976, which became part of the Tate Gallery four years later.
Words: Janet Axten
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