Summary
An artist's studio, built in 1888 by Benjamin Arthur Bateman, for the painter Stanhope Alexander Forbes, RA (1857-1947).
Reasons for Designation
Anchor Studio, an artist’s studio built for Stanhope Forbes in 1888, is listed at Grade II*, for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a well-preserved, late-C19 purpose-built artist’s studio which remains in its original use, an increasingly rare building type;
* unusually, its interior was built with, and retains, features to enable it to be used as a ‘stage set’ for interior compositions;
* the only alteration to the studio space was made in the earlier C20, to create additional space to be used by the Newlyn (Forbes) School of Art, demonstrating the building’s evolution.
Historic interest:
* Anchor Studio was built for Stanhope Alexander Forbes, RA (1857-1947), the acknowledged leader of the internationally-renowned Newlyn art colony in its early years;
* the building was used as exhibition space for the colony’s Royal Academy submissions each year;
* the Forbes School of Art, set up by Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, using Anchor Studio as its focus, attracted numerous students who would go on to become nationally-significant artists, including Dod Procter, Ernest Procter and John Wells;
* the advent of the Forbes School brought in a new wave of artists to Newlyn, including Cedric Morris, Terry Frost and others attracted from St Ives, to create a second colony of highly significant artists;
* the building, both internally and externally, features in paintings by Forbes and others of the Newlyn School painters;
* Anchor Studio has remained in its original use as an artist’s studio continuously since it was built in 1888.
History
Anchor Studio was constructed in 1888 as a purpose-built studio, one of the first of its kind in Newlyn. The settlement was already the home of the Newlyn art colony, a group of plein-air artists who had largely trained in France and the Netherlands, who moved to the small fishing port of Newlyn from about 1882, initially setting up their studios in disused net and sail lofts. The group was, unofficially but recognisably, led by Stanhope Alexander Forbes, RA (1857-1947), known as the father of the Newlyn School. Forbes had travelled to Brittany in 1881, coming into contact with the plein-air painters there, who painted directly from nature in the open air; their work influenced his own style and methods. He was a founder member of the New English Art Club and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. His work, often depicting the people of Newlyn, tended to illustrate the nobility of working life, faithfully recording the lives of the fishermen, craftspeople and women of Cornwall, set against the Cornish land and sea, and capturing with realism the light and life of the place. Forbes was a successful artist both commercially and critically in his lifetime; he also maintained a thriving trade as a portraitist, for which he was much in demand. Forbes moved to Newlyn in 1884, and soon became the leading figure in the growing colony of artists drawn to the town by the Cornish light and the availability of suitable subject matter. In 1888, Benjamin Arthur Bateman purchased the field known as The Meadow, set up above the fishing cottages along the harbour, and constructed a new, purpose-built studio (now known as Anchor Studio) for Forbes, as well as others for Frank Bramley and Norman Garstin. Anchor Studio was built in largely its current form, with the single-storey granite ‘cottage’ at the western end, and a basement of granite piers to the east. This range was, though, initially built with a superstructure entirely of glazed roof and walls at the upper level, which was designed, like the others, to allow the painters to work in direct natural light, whatever the weather, rather than moving indoors to their former studios in net and sail lofts, as they had been forced to previously in windy or wet weather. A photograph of 1892 shows the building with its neat, glazed end and an external stair rising from right to left. The space within could be divided by hanging curtains or painted backdrops from a rail; in 1892, Forbes completed his Royal Academy entry for that year in the studio, despite its setting in a forge. 'Forging the Anchor' (Colchester and Ipswich Museums), depicting smiths at their anvil manufacturing an anchor with the blaze of the hearth behind them, was begun on site in a forge, but the heat proved too much to allow Forbes to complete it there; instead, he painted a backdrop of the walls of the smiths’ shop, which was hung in the studio and the anvil and anchor brought indoors, and the picture was completed there. Photographs from an album preserved in the Tate Gallery collections show Forbes at work on the painting. A further photograph shows that the western end of the studio, which is domestic in nature, with matchboarded, plastered walls and a modest fireplace with a row of colourful Delft tiles to add interest, was also used as a setting for paintings; current research is discovering further pictures where Forbes and others used this part of the building as a set for their subjects. In a memoir of the colony in 1898, Forbes refers to his studio with its glass, and recalls, ‘I once built a smithy in this same glass house, and herein forged an anchor with brushes and paint’.
Forbes’s studio was used from 1888-1895 for a grand annual exhibition to show work by the group, principally paintings destined for the Royal Academy, which were extremely well attended. However, with the opening of the new Passmore Edwards Gallery in Newlyn, the exhibitions ceased as artists increasingly chose to show their work there, along with pieces from the thriving colony at St Ives. This period marked the fragmentation of the previously closely-knit group centred on The Meadow, and the end of the first phase of the Newlyn colony.
In 1897, Stanhope Forbes, his wife, Canadian painter Elizabeth Adela Forbes (née Armstrong) and George Hunter purchased the whole of the site at The Meadow, and set up the Newlyn School of Painting (also known as the Forbes School), to try to counter the effects of the loss of members of the colony. Anchor Studio was partly remodelled sometime between 1892 and 1899, though most likely in connection with the establishment of the School of Painting, where it was used as the Head Room, where students drew from clothed models. Forbes built himself a new glass studio a little further up the slope behind Anchor Studio (not extant), and the glazed range of Anchor Studio was replaced with the present timber framed and weatherboarded structure, to provide more practical space in which students could work. At the same time, the external stair was reorientated to rise from left to right, in its present position. The other studios Bateman had constructed at the same time as Anchor Studio were used as a cast room, where beginners drew from casts, and a life room, where more advanced students undertook life drawing. An artists’ supply shop was set up once or twice a week in The Meadow, possibly in the basement of Anchor Studio, where James Lanham brought supplies from his shop in St Ives. The school was able to accommodate about 40 students at a time, with the peak period between about 1901 and 1913; it attracted several painters who would go on to become distinguished figures, including Dod Procter, her husband Ernest Procter and Jim Ede, founder of Kettles Yard in Cambridge, where he installed a number of paintings by artists of the Newlyn and St Ives schools. With the rise of the School, other, established artists were drawn to Newlyn, including (Dame) Laura Knight, her husband the portraitist Harold Knight, animal painter Charles Simpson, and artist and art teacher (Sir) Cedric Morris.
The Forbes School continued until about 1939-40; Stanhope Forbes died in 1947. Following the end of the Second World War, Anchor Studio was rented from Forbes’ widow by abstract painter John Wells, who had briefly attended the Newlyn School of Painting before pursuing a career as a doctor. After the war, Wells chose his artistic career over a medical one, and moved to Newlyn, becoming closely involved with the art colony at St Ives. He purchased Anchor Studio, and probably named it thus, after Forbes’ painting, in 1949. Other abstract artists including Sir Terry Frost followed him to Newlyn, creating a new cluster of artists making work in the town. John Wells continued to work at Anchor Studio until his death in 2000. He made some alterations to the eastern end of the studio, and divided the basement to create more rooms including a bathroom. Following John Wells’ death, the building passed to the John Wells Borlase Smart Trust; it continues in its original use as a home and work space for artists in residence.
Details
An artist's studio, built in 1888 by Benjamin Arthur Bateman, for the painter Stanhope Alexander Forbes, RA (1857-1947).
MATERIALS
Granite rubble and weatherboarded timber frame; scantle slate and asbestos tile roofs.
PLAN
Rectangular on plan; a single studio room open to the roof, with fireplace at the west end, entrance to the south side and a large north light on north side. The ground falls away steeply at the eastern end, where the boarded timber-framed range is raised on granite piers, under-built for accommodation.
EXTERIOR
The building, in two ranges, is single storey, with a basement under the east end. The western end is a three-bay, granite building with a central entrance doorway under a granite lintel, with a plank and batten door, reached up a flight of three granite steps. To the left is a four-light, multi-paned horizontally-sliding sash window under a timber lintel; and a similar, two-light window under a granite lintel to the right. To the left end is a brick ridge stack. The western gable end is blind; the northern elevation is dominated by a very large, fixed-light multi-paned window which rises through the eaves as a massive gabled half-dormer, with weatherboarding to the gable. Adjoining this range to the east, with a lower roofline, is the slightly later timber-framed and weatherboarded range, over a basement, raised on granite piers. The north side has a large, multi-paned window set centrally in the ground floor; the wall of the basement below is rendered and has a doorway and window opening. The eastern gable end wall is weatherboarded to the upper floor, with a large, vertical window opening (boarded at the time of inspection in 2018); the gable is asymmetrical as it extends to the north to accommodate the enclosed external stair which rises from basement level to the ground floor on the south elevation. This elevation is also weatherboarded, with a two-over-two sash window to the right of the stair; a blocked doorway to the left shows the former entrance, before the stair was moved to run up from left to right. The basement is enclosed between the granite piers, partly with a rubble stone wall.
INTERIOR
The interior of both ranges forms a single, large studio space. The western range has plastered walls with matchboarding to dado height, and against the west end wall, a timber fire surround with plain uprights, a frieze of Delft tiles, reeded brackets and mantle with fluted front edge, and a modern woodburning stove. The timber-framed range to the east has boarded walls. The roof trusses are simple A-frames, with two rows of purlins. The space is open to the roof, apart from the bays to either side of the entrance door which have later inserted ceilings. A built-in metal rail spans the width of the studio, just to the east of the division between the two ranges, formerly used to hang painted backdrops. The studio retains its life modelling platform, on castors (not fixed). A plank door at the eastern end gives access to a ladder stair which then turns to join the external staircase to the basement. The basement is divided into several rooms with lightweight partitions, the walls variously clad.
