On the 11th of October 1928 a person who went by the initials of T.E. sent a postcard of St Ives to an address in Reading Berkshire.
It was an unremarkable view of “Pedmolva Point” in St Ives made all the more gloomy by its faded sepia appearance.
I have visited and stayed in St Ives on many occasions as I have a great interest in the history of art.
It is an interesting place (which can get a little crowded in the summer) and really has something for everyone including some huge beaches.
My interest is not in ice creams, soggy chips nor paddling, swimming or building sandcastles.
Caron and I are more interested in the artists who have connections with this lovely Cornish town.
Like Margate (which is close to where I currently live) St Ives has a special light and this has drawn artists to the town since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The extension of the Great Western Railway to West Cornwall in 1877 made travelling to St Ives so much easier as up to then it had been quite remote.
I actually consider the light in Margate to be superior to that of St Ives but that is a personal opinion and with the advent of easy travel artists flocked to the area as well as writers and poets.
D.H.Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry have connections with nearby Zennor but by the time my postcard was sent they had been gone for over ten years (Lawrence had a German wife and for some reason many locals thought that they were German spies).
Indeed Lawrence was on his Savage Pilgrimage well away from these Cornish shores (he sadly died in 1930).
But 1928 is important for another reason as Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) and Christopher Wood (1901-1930) met the now famous naive artist Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) who only started painting at the age of seventy using household paints on scraps of cardboard or other compatible surfaces.
Alfred, who had no artistic training influenced Ben and was instrumental in confirming the later direction of his work.
Tragically Christopher fell under a train at Salisbury Railway Station in 1930.
In 1939 Ben and his then wife the sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) settled near St Ives and were soon joined by the Russian Sculptor Naum Gabo (1890-1977) who actually lived in nearby Carbis Bay.
After the war ended this small town became a centre of modern and abstract developments in British Art and this was mostly led by Barbara and Ben (Naum had left St Ives in1946).
From about 1950 onwards a new group of younger artists such as Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton,Terry Frost, Peter Lanyon and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham to name but five became principal members of the St Ives School which had its heyday in the 1950/1960s.
Indeed one of my lecturers at college had been taught by Terry Frost a few years previously.
In 1993 the Tate St Ives was opened above Porthmeor Beach and is well worth a visit as it exhibits the Tate’s collection of the St Ives School as well as other artists.
This striking gallery does not fall into the trap of holding exhibitions of what can be seen as edgy art which only appeals to a minority ( the Turner Contemporary in Margate isoften guilty of this) and on my frequent visits it is a joy to behold.
It is also a great place for tea and buns and incidentally is overlooked by the Baroon cemetery where Alfred is buried under an elaborate gravestone made from tiles by the potter Bernard Leach who is also heavily associated with St Ives.
Caron and I visited his grave on a wild November afternoon and were almost blown to the New World as this cemetery is rather exposed to the elements to say the least.
The kind staff at the Tate can point you in the right direction but do try to choose a calm day.
We have also visited the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden which is situated at her Trewyn studio which was purchased in 1949 and it was where she mainly worked until her death there in an accidental fire in 1975.
At the time of our last visit (2009) it was exactly as she had left it (to a great extent) at the time of her death.
It is almost as if she has popped out for a loaf of bread.
I thoroughly recommend a visit.
All this from a random 1928 postcard found in a junk shop and the good news is that the arcade sells postcards by the dozen and always has a good stock of Cornish postcards and usually some from St Ives.
Next time you are passing through have a look at the selection which is just rather good and very well catalogued.
There seems to be postcards about all things pleasing and occasionally so obscure you wonder why it became a postcard in the first place (a roundabout in Basingstoke or the irrigation systems on the Somerset Levels anyone).
But they are great fun and although I do not collect them seriously I do have a small collection mainly of seaside postcards from families to maiden aunts (having a great time between the showers, little Johnny sick at Blackpool Station but we have all been given a bucket and spade by Auntie Ida ….lots of love Tuppence).
Postcards can quite often paste together social history as this 1928 one did for me as I immediately thought of Christopher and Ben meeting Alfred in 1928, a meeting that changed their lives.