Newlyn Painters at Penlee House 2026

 ‘The art of the Newlyn School.  Paintings  of Cornish Life and Light 1880 - 1930"

The Penlee collection contains 750 works to choose from and the remarkable Bowerman collection has partnered to make this show possible. Alison Bevan has curated and written the book that accompanies the exhibition, in Penzance Oct 7 2026 to Jan 9 2027,  then touring to Nottingham and  4 other places.

When I visited people were spending time immersed in the world of these painters - I felt like an extra in a film about these people.
The care and skill is impressive as are the gilded decorated frames.
How have we come from painting like this to the complete abstraction of Rothko or the  literal installation of Emin’s bed?

The contrasts of life and art  then and now are very thought provoking.

 

'Motherless' Walter Langley  1895

 

Here is Walter Langley’s ‘Motherless’ 1895. Hard to see anyone wanting a painting of such a tragic scene now, the child and grandmother sitting with the dead mother in her bed,  the austere  simplicity of the room, the muted colours and soft light all adding to the sadness. 

TraceyEmin’s  bed is similarly used to tell a story, albeit one  of a dissolute life, but this painting is before tv and before much film existed - a constant reminder of life’s brevity, concentrated for contemplation whereas we recreate endless repetitions of tragedy in our moving image stories which flash past our eyes every night at home.

 

 

The road to market Harold Harvey, 1924 

 

1924 finds Harvey painting a family travelling by cart through countryside which remains as beautiful today. 
Being a Saturday, upstairs there was a workshop, aimed at children, with the opportunity to cut out figures and place them on photos of the paintings that had figures removed. This emphasized the importance of scale in making images from one source fit with another, something the  Newlyn artists must have considered as they combined drawings from models in one place with scenes from another. 

As photography was invented in the  1830’s and a Kodak camera for mass use in 1888, I presume many artists used photographs but this is rarely mentioned. However there are photos of the artists here.

Everything in these paintings is carefully arranged, they are the product of hundreds of decisions and plenty of time and this meticulous study and theatrical composition somehow reaches the viewer who is prepared to give them attention and feel the emotion evoked which links us to the people, who are central to this art.

It’s a show to return to and to treasure and make you feel more gentle towards the folk you see around Penzance as you go out again into our own parallel world of struggles and joys.

I couldn’t resist the book either.