Art Scene in St Ives

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the clarity of light unique to St Ives and the romantic coastal scenery with its gigantic seas, rugged cliffs and wild moorland has seduced artists from around the world. The town itself, with its picturesque harbour and charismatic fisher folk, offered a wealth of subject material.

In 1920 Bernard Leach, who would become a leader in the world of potters and make St Ives internationally famous, arrived with the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada and built Europe’s first oriental climbing kiln at Higher Stennack. Together they joined the ceramic traditions and techniques of the West and East, creating a modern vision and significantly influencing the development of the twentieth-century studio pottery movement.

Following the Second World War, the established group of painters, sculptors and potters in St Ives and their growing reputation attracted a succession of younger artists. This younger generation formed the new school of abstract artists for which St Ives would become famous and soon established the town as an important artistic centre for the avant-garde. Among the newcomers were: John Wells, Patrick Heron, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Terry Frost, Sven Berlin, Denis Mitchell, Roger Hilton, Karle Wesche, Paul Feiler, Bryan Wynter and Peter Lanyon – the only artist born locally.

Opened in 1993, in recognition of St Ives’ significant presence in the art world, today the Tate St Ives features exhibitions of the modern St Ives School of painters alongside a colourful array of British and international modern and contemporary art.