John Passmore Edwards Web Site
The Newlyn Art Gallery Plaques
| During the official Foundation Stone laying
ceremony, Passmore Edwards was presented with a trowel "of exquisite
design in beaten metal- a sample of the repouseé work produced
by the Newlyn Colony of Artists". John D Mackenzie, artist and illustrator, had arrived in Newlyn about 1888 and became involved, with local benefactor T B Bolitho and the artists Reginald Dick, T C Gotch and Percy Craft, in the founding of the Industrial Class, specialising in repouseé copperware and enamel. Commencing, initially, in an unused fish cellar the workshop became in time a self-supporting industry |
| Part of the growing Arts and Crafts Movement that was, at a time of increasing industrialisation, concerned in an effort to promote craftsmanship, the Industrial Class strove also to provide alternative employment to the fluctuations of the fishing industry. John Pearson, who had until 1892 been the senior craftsman at the Guild of Handicraft and Industries Association in London, moved to Newlyn to share his skills but it was to Mackenzie, who directed the workshops until he was killed in WW1, that credit for the successes must be given. |
| The original design for the Newlyn Art Gallery included that the façade should be decorated by carved frieze work. The collaboration of the Newlyn artists with the architect, James Hicks, influenced the final design of the Gallery, which now included a commission for the Industrial Class to produce the four copper plaques that now grace the façade. |
| The subject chosen for the plaques was the four elements- earth, air, fire and water. Mackenzie produced most of the designs, all of which were simple and direct in approach, using local subjects as fish, seabirds and plants. Although the plaques were beaten by Philip Hodder, under the supervision of Pearson, the influence of the latter, in the working of the copper is clear. |
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© Dean Evans 2004
April 3, 2005