Hidden Treasures: Discovering St Ives Towns' Art Collection with Catherine Wallace

Catherine Wallace was born in Cuffley but grew up in Otley, West Yorkshire. She studied Fine art at Leeds and Canterbury specialising in sculpture, before completing a Master’s degree in Art history and Museum studies at St Andrews University. Having focused her studies on Wyndham Lewis, she researched and organized a major loan exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum in 1992. Moving to Cornwall in 1993, she was responsible for Falmouth Art Gallery for eight years, curating both contemporary and historic art exhibitions as well as overseeing the redevelopment of the gallery. Since 2000 she has been a freelance curator, author and lecturer. Major exhibitions include “Catching the Light: The Art and life of Henry Scott Tuke (1858 – 1929)” in 2008 held at Falmouth Art Gallery and Royal Cornwall Museum simultaneously .She has also worked as a fundraiser and project manager for arts charities including the Borlase Smart – John Wells Trust and the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. For 10 years Catherine organised exhibitions of contemporary art for the Lander gallery in Truro . Catherine was an Arts Society lecturer from 2009 – 2024 and has considerable experience in giving lectures on aspects of historic and contemporary British Art both in the UK and in Australia. Catherine has written several books on historic Cornish Art including “Under the Open Sky” Newlyn and Lamorna Artists 1880 – 1940 and has contributed to publications on Dame Laura Knight and The history of the Anchor Studio in Newlyn.

In this talk Catherine traces the acquisition history of some of the works in the Town’s Art Collection and the significance of the exhibitions for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The collection includes works by the prominent maritime painters in St. Ives such as Louis Grier, John A. Park, and R. Borlase Smart, as well as portraits by Leonard Fuller and Clare White, landscapes by Dorothy Bayley and W. Barns-Graham with village and street scenes by Bernard Ninnes and Winifred Freeman. The town is home to several major works by Dame Barbara Hepworth. Catherine discusses these along with prints, embroidered textiles, and a group of ceramics by Bernard and Janet Leach as well as Shinsaku and Tomoo Hamada.

Also check out other Arts events in St Ives, Exhibitions in St Ives, Nonprofit events in St Ives.