Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM (1912 – 2004)
View of St Ives, 1940
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 ¼ inches / 63.5 x 76.5 cm
Provenance:
The Barns Graham Trust
Recently rediscovered and restored, this painting of rooftops in St Ives, with
the harbour and the island beyond is a wonderful, early evocation of the
central feature of her new home. She would again and again draw and paint
the harbour and its environs. Contemporary photographs record her working
at her easel in the streets of St Ives. Here, her vantage point was Tregenna
Terrace, high above the town. The simplification of forms and textural
approach to mark making, together with the paleness of palette in the
foreground, darkening in the island and the sea, suggest the sharp penetrating
lights of Cornwall, so reminiscent of that of her native St Andrews.