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In the early 1900s, as the 'Newlyn School' artists' colony began to lose its coherence, the focus of Cornish art shifted a few miles along the coast to the dramatic wooded cove at Lamorna. Here, students from the art school founded by Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes joined with leading artists such as Dame Laura Knight, Alfred Munnings and SJ ‘Lamorna’ Birch to establish a more bohemian community, producing great works of art while outraging the locals with their wild ways, and playing host to leading figures of the day, from Augustus John to 'tramp poet' WH Davies. Through stunning paintings and archive photographs, this talk takes the audience back to those halcyon days and explores some of the fascinating and entertaining characters who made the Lamorna valley their home.
Alison Beven
Since graduating in History of Art from Nottingham University in 1986, Alison Bevan (née Lloyd) has spent her entire career working in public art galleries. Starting out at the Graham Sutherland Gallery in her home county of Pembrokeshire, she then spent ten years organising and curating exhibitions at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, where she honed her broadcast media skills, including presenting a weekly Arts News feature on BBC Radio Wales, 1995-6.
In 1999, Alison took up the role of Director of Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance. Here she became an acknowledged expert on the Newlyn, Lamorna and St Ives artists colonies (1880-1940), a subject on which has lectured in the UK, USA and France. She raised the profile of this area of art through initiating national and international touring exhibitions, and contributing to numerous publications and television programmes, and in 2013 was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to Cultural Heritage in Cornwall.
From 2013-2024, Alison was Director of the RWA (Royal West of England Academy) – Britain’s only regional Royal Academy of Art: an extraordinary historic institution whose Academicians have included leading figures of the Newlyn School and Bloomsbury Group, and today include Sir Peter Blake, Sir Frank Bowling and Eileen Cooper.
Now based in Chepstow and working as a freelance lecturer, curator and consultant, she is also Chair of Bristol Museums’ Oversight Board; a Fellow of the Museums Association, and an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Bristol.
Alison spent ten years organising and curating exhibitions at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, where she honed her broadcast media skills, including presenting a weekly Arts News feature on BBC Radio Wales, 1995-6.
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