Ken Symonds

The Harbor At St Michaels Mount In Cornwall Framed Cornish Coastal Oil Painting

1982

Joan Gillchrest. English ( b.1918 - d.2008 ). Cornish Fishing Boats At First Light. Oil On Paper Mounted On Board. Signed Monogram Lower Right. Image size 26.2 inches x 22 inches ( 66.5cm x 56cm ). Frame size 35.8 inches x 31.3 inches ( 91cm x 79.5cm ). Available for sale; this original oil painting is by the Cornish artist Joan Gillchrest and dates from around the late 1980s. The oil painting is presented and supplied in a sympathetic new replacement frame (which is shown in these photographs) that suits the artwork’s color palette and behind non-reflective Tru Vue UltraVue® UV70 glass. This painting is in excellent condition and presents superbly. It wants for nothing and is ready to hang and display. The painting is signed with her monogram lower right. Joan Gillchrest is one of Mousehole’s and Cornwall’s most recognised and celebrated artists. Her vibrant art sits firmly alongside other great artists of the St. Ives School from the 1960s. She was born Joan Scott in London in 1918 into a wealthy and illustrious family. She was the third of four children. Her father was a pioneer of radiology – and a skilful caricaturist - and her Australian mother was an accomplished pianist. Sir George Gilbert Scott was her great grandfather, who designed the imposing Midland Grand Hotel at St. Pancras as well as countless parish churches. Grandfather, George Gilbert Scott Jnr, is remembered for three Cambridge colleges, Christ’s, Pembroke and Peterhouse. Her uncle Giles, (Giles Gilbert Scott) to whom Joan was close, is best known for his magnificent Anglican Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and the iconic and ubiquitous red telephone box. Coming from such a long line of eminent architects it is not surprising that Joan always loved architecture and the churches and chapels of the Penwith peninsula feature prominently in her work. She said that buildings were “in her blood”. Her early childhood was spent at the family home in Buckinghamshire, but she was a difficult child – the family hired one nanny for her and one for the other three children- and at one point she was sent to Upper Chine School in the Isle of Wright to give her family some peace! She was however the apple of her father’s eye and he encouraged her obvious artistic talent. In 1934, aged only 15 but encouraged by her parents, she went to Paris to study art and learn the language. There she met Gwen John and studied in various studios, sometimes working as a model. In 1936 she enrolled at the Grosvenor School of Art and subsequently studied there under Iain McNab, whom she described as a marvelous teacher. Her early artistic career was very promising; she first exhibited at the Royal Academy when she was just 18 and showed works at the New England Art Club in 1937 and the London Group in 1938. When the Second World War broke out Joan was 21. She took a crash course in nursing and first aid and volunteered as an ambulance driver for Westminster Hospital. She later drove a mobile rescue unit. She was not able to paint much during the war but kept in touch with McNab; when the area around St Paul’s was blitzed, leaving the cathedral relatively unscathed, McNab got Joan and a few others to paint the scene. Her work, created with a thick paint and a palette knife, hung in the art school for many years. Joan’s painting career stalled in the 1940s. In 1942 she married a barrister and Coldstream Guards officer Samuel Gillchrest, and they soon had a son, then a daughter. With a young family, she had little time to paint, and had to hide the work she did produce as her husband thought that work as an artist was beneath them. Sadly, the marriage broke down and in 1953 they divorced. In leaving a difficult marriage at this time, she forfeited money, security and her previous place in society. Despite the huge changes in her life, her overwhelming desire to paint remained constant. She ignored the disapproval of her friends and family and started to explore new ways of expressing herself on canvas. She moved to a studio in Chelsea, an area much favored by the artistic community. To support herself, her children and her painting she also found regular work as an artist’s model. She was tall, strikingly good looking and combined elegance with bohemianism. She also carried an air of mystery from her rich and privileged past, and so she became sought after as a fashion model. In the flat below hers lived an artist who had enjoyed some professional acclaim, Adrian Ryan...

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