For a period in the middle of the 20th century, the small town of St.Ives in Cornwall was the centre of some of the most vital artistic production in Britain, if not in the wold. In the Art world of the 1950’s, if one was referred to as a St.Ives artist people would have a sense of what that meant. The work that would be bough to mind would be modern, largely none representational (though not necessarily so) and related to landscape. It attracted the most gifted British artists of the period. Including Peter Lanyon, Christopher Wood, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Rodger Hilton of the first generation.
They were to be followed by internationally acclaimed artists such as Sandra Blow, Trevor Bell, Breon O’Casey, Adrian Heath, Terry Frost and Paul Feiler. However the town would go onto inspire other artists who visited; but did not settle there, such as Francis Bacon, Alan Davie, Henry Moore and even Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.
