Irish artists in West Cornwall

Retallick, Matt (2024) Irish artists in West Cornwall. In: The Routledge Companion to Irish Art. Routledge. (In Press)

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Abstract

This chapter examines several Irish artists and their engagement with Celtic West Cornwall, charting how the unique cultural conditions of the art colonies St Ives and Newlyn enhanced their sense of ‘Irishness’. Breon O’Casey (1928-2011) and Tony O’Malley (1913-2003) are discussed as post-Second World War examples, and Alexander Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) and Norman Garstin (1847-1926) offer a foundation to this, with an already established Irish artistic presence in the nineteenth century. This chapter understands artistic formations in West Cornwall as far more nuanced than existing histories allow, and considers how these artists until now, almost exclusively discussed via the lens of Cornwall, retained their ‘Irishness’ in different ways.