Heritage - Artists
Guernsey has a long tradition of maritime art, whether as part of an artist's seascape or as a commission from a ship builder or owner. Many vessels have been recorded for posterity and Guernsey's seafaring tradition has been illustrated by many skilled hands.
The French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir spent a month in Guernsey in the late summer of 1883 painting views of Moulin Huet on the island's rocky south coast.
Arguably the most famous local painter was Peter Le Lievre whose watercolours of St Peter Port and the harbour, are a valuable record of his period.
Many other artists have found Guernsey and its islands irresistible to paint. Here are some of the most influential artists, some of which are local, and some having discovered the islands:
Peter Le Lievre (1812-1878)
Born and educated in Guernsey. Amongst the first pupils at Elizabeth College in its present buildings, he later became one of its Directors. A wine-merchant by trade he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Guernsey Militia Artillery. He was also a churchwarden, a founder of the Mechanics Institution, and a member of States Committees, but he twice unsuccessfully stood for the position of Jurat. A man of many accomplishments, geologist and naturalist, he designed the two lighthouses at the end of the Castle breakwater and St. Julian’s pier.
His high standing and calibre as an artist has not yet been recognised outside of the island due to him never exhibited in London, but his work shows a variety of interests, sea-scape, townscape, landscape and portraiture, matched by skill in a variety of techniques. He is able to capture mood (see his handling of the wreck of the “Oneida” 1849) and his ability to render light and shade is masterly.
William John Caparne (1856-1940)
Caparne was born in Nottinghamshire and studied at the Slade School London and in Paris. Appointed art master to Oundle School in 1880, he also began to grow bulbs and seeds. After the death of his wife in 1894 he left Oundle and eventually settled in Guernsey, setting up as a grower specialising in irises. He was to receive many awards for his work with irises, and his watercolour flower studies are an important historical record.
Caparne also constantly painted landscapes, mainly in watercolours, for his own pleasure, rarely parting with any of his pictures. Occasionally he painted in Europe where he met members of the Impressionist movement, including Monet, with whom he had much in common. Sadly he lost his sight towards the end of his life.
Ethel Cheeswright (1874-1977)
As a young student at the Ladies College she was “certain only that she wanted to paint”. After some formal art training by 1892 she was living in Sark.
Throughout her long life she displayed obvious determination and self-assurance. Deeply religious, she was an ardent worker for the Mission For Deep Sea Fishermen and her respect for those who risked their lives at sea shows in a number of her paintings.
She was herself a tireless fisherman and described her joy and exhilaration “to have been out with the boats at their work, shooting the seine for sand-eels, or dragging the purple trammel net, afire with phosphorescence from the moonlit sea, to have sailed close-reefed in a stiff breeze with the mackerel lines astern, or hauled up lobster pots from the mysterious depths of the water-world, or to have steered through the foaming tide-race of Les Burons or dared the perilous passage of the Guillot, thrilling as the boat leapt forward on the crest of a the green rushing seas like a thing alive”.
Deported by the Germans in 1943, she continued to paint though ill-health and pain. Visits outside the internment camp were arranged by a kindly Red Cross nurse. She was repatriated in 1944 and after the war she returned to Sark, continuing to paint though nearly blind and having to use double-lensed spectacles. When asked on her 101st birthday how she felt, she replied : “Excruciatingly bored”!
Paul Naftel (1817-1891)
Naftel had no interest in the family clockmaking business and always wanted to be an artist. Self-taught, a Quaker, he persisted in his ambition by giving lessons and finally at the age of 30 became “professor of drawing” at Elizabeth College where he stayed for 20 years before moving to London in 1870.
He exhibited widely, as did his second wife and his daughter Maud who studied at the Slade but died before her father. Naftel became an Associate of the Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1850 and was elected a Member in 1854. Between 1850 and 1889 he exhibited over 500 works, landscapes not only of Guernsey and its neighbouring islands, but also of England and Europe.
William Toplis (1857-1942)
Toplis was already an established artist when he arrived in Sark for a holiday in 1883. He never left again, finding a lifetime’s inspiration around him. A true “plein air” painter he portrayed the rocky cliffs of Sark in fastidious detail. He suffered much privation and even poverty and was often in dispute with the Sark authorities. Nevertheless he regularly sent work for the Royal Academy, and in 1907 had two pieces accepted. He is best known for his prints in “The Book of Sark” published in 1907.
William Lionel Wyllie RA, RI, RE (1851-1931)
Painter in oils and watercolour and etcher of marine and coastal subjects. Wyllie was arguably the most important marine painter of his age. He studied in London at Heatherley’s and the Royal Academy Schools where he won the Turner Gold Medal in 1869. His paintings, especially scenes of the Thames and the British fleet, became very well known through reproductions and engravings. During the last twenty-five years of his life he concentrated mainly on Naval and historical painting, often on a large scale, and on mastering the technique of etching. His charming and sensitive watercolours are usually of the coast of Northern France and occasionally of the Channel Islands. He exhibited frequently in London at the Royal Academy, Society of British Artists, New Watercolour Society, Grosvenor Gallery and elsewhere.
For further details of art in the Bailiwick of Guernsey please visit the Guernsey Museums website.
THE GUERNSEY OPEN BASS FESTIVAL 2010 26 Aug 2010 - 30 Aug 2010
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GUERNSEY POWERBOAT RACING 02 May 2010 - 10 Oct 2010
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