Penlee House Gallery & Museum has successfully raised £65,000 to purchase an important painting by a leading artist of the Newlyn School, Walter Langley (1852 – 1922). The picture, called ‘Cornish Fisherfolk’, was painted in 1908 and exhibited at the Royal Academy. The work was acquired thanks to the support of the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Art Fund and The Friends of Penlee House.
For the past fourteen years, the painting has been on loan from Waverley Borough Council. Now it will form part of the permanent public collection of Newlyn School paintings at Penlee House, less than a mile from where it was originally painted.
The name ‘Newlyn School’ was given to the colony of artists who settled in the fishing village from the 1880s onwards, attracted by the clear, even light and dedicated to painting the honest, hard-working lives of the people who lived there. Coming from a poor, working-class background himself, Birmingham-born artist Walter Langley was interested in portraying scenes of everyday life in a small fishing village, highlighting the hardships and tragedies that were commonplace during that period.
Penlee Curator Katie Herbert says, “We are especially grateful to all those who have helped us to raise the funds to secure the painting for Penlee’s collections, namely the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Art Fund, the Friends of Penlee House and the many individuals who responded to our appeal by donating online, by post and through donation boxes within the Gallery.
We are grateful to Waverley Borough Council for their considered decision to offer the painting through a private treaty sale, rather than releasing it to the uncertainties of auction.
She added “Penlee House has become home to the second most important collection of Walter Langley’s work, after Birmingham Museums Trust. It is fitting that Langley, regarded as the pioneer of the Newlyn School, should be well-represented here at Penlee House”.
The painting is currently on display at Penlee House Gallery & Museum as part of the Newlyn School selection in Gallery 5.
