Images Dated 2019 August

Tamsin Blight, the White Witch of Helston, William Jones Chapman (1808-1872)

Oil on canvas, English School, 1856. A portrait of an elderly woman wearing a bonnet and shawl, seated in a chair. Thomasine Blight (1793-1856), known locally as Tammy Blee, was the best remembered of the pellars or witches of West Cornwall. Sometimes known as a cunning-person or conjurer, she was thought to perform only good deeds, notably the removal of curses of black witches and numerous cures. Even when she was on her death bed people were carried in to see her, some on stretchers. It was said that the sick lay beside her 'only to rise up and go down over the stairs perfectly cured'. She was also known as a fortune teller. Tammy's second husband, James Thomas, had similar occult powers and there was considerable rivalry between them. W.J. Chapman was a Cornish portrait painter who was active between 1840-1860. This portrait was painted in the year of Blight's death in 1856.

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The Boy Jacka, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929)

Oil on canvas, Newlyn School, 1886-1888. Full length portrait of boy against a green door. Henry Scott Tuke was born into a Quaker family in Lawrence Street, York. In 1859 the family moved to Falmouth, where his father Daniel Tuke , a physician, established a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age and some of his earliest drawings, aged four or five years old, were published in 1895. In 1875, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. Initially his father paid for his tuition but in 1877 Tuke won a scholarship, which allowed him to continue his training at the Slade and in Italy in 1880. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris where he met the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged him to paint en plein air (in the open air) a method of working that came to dominate his practice. While studying in France, Tuke decided to move to Newlyn, Cornwall where many of his Slade and Parisian friends had already formed the Newlyn School of painters. He received several lucrative commissions there, after exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London. In 1885, he returned to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. He became an established artist and was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. Tuke suffered a heart attack in 1928 and died in March 1929. In his will he left generous amounts of money to some of the men who, as boys, had been his models. Today he is remembered mainly for his oil paintings of young men, but in addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced as many portraits of sailing ships as he did human figures. He was a prolific artist, over 1,300 works are listed and more are still being discovered. Tuke painted over 13 portraits of 'quay scamp' and deckhand Jack 'Jacka' Rowing (Rolling) between 1886 and 1888. Rowling eventually became a diver for the Liverpool Salvage Company. Many of Tuke's models, like Phillip Harvey at Newlyn and Edwin 'Neddy' Hall in Falmouth, were local fishermen, mariners, or shipworkers.

© RIC

Harry, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929)

Oil on canvas, Newlyn School, around 1888. Henry Scott Tuke was born into a Quaker family in Lawrence Street, York. In 1859 the family moved to Falmouth, where his father Daniel Tuke , a physician, established a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age and some of his earliest drawings, aged four or five years old, were published in 1895. In 1875, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. Initially his father paid for his tuition but in 1877 Tuke won a scholarship, which allowed him to continue his training at the Slade and in Italy in 1880. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris where he met the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged him to paint en plein air (in the open air) a method of working that came to dominate his practice. While studying in France, Tuke decided to move to Newlyn, Cornwall where many of his Slade and Parisian friends had already formed the Newlyn School of painters. He received several lucrative commissions there, after exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London. In 1885, he returned to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. He became an established artist and was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. Tuke suffered a heart attack in 1928 and died in March 1929. In his will he left generous amounts of money to some of the men who, as boys, had been his models. Today he is remembered mainly for his oil paintings of young men, but in addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced as many portraits of sailing ships as he did human figures. He was a prolific artist, over 1,300 works are listed and more are still being discovered. Tuke often used the same models in his work and painted Harry Cleave several times between 1885 and 1888. Cleave caused Tuke some problems when he converted to Methodism in 1887 and decided he could no longer pose for him. Fortunately Tuke managed to persuade Cleave that posing for artists did not compromise his newly found religious belief.

© RIC