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THE STAITHES GROUP : AN ART COLONY ON THE EAST COAST

Jim Burns

The late-nineteenth century saw a rise in the number of locations where artists and their associates came together to paint, talk, and generally engage in activities conducive to the development of their careers. Painters and sculptors had always mingled in cities, but what came to be known as art colonies were something new and different. Some were in rural areas. Barbizon in France was an early example, and later Worpswede in Germany and Betws-y-Coed in Wales attracted painters and others. But a great many of them were in small coastal towns and villages. The sea and the local people, often seemingly almost unspoilt when compared to urban crowds, providing ample material for the artists.

In Britain there were coastal colonies in Cullercoats, Staithes, Walberswick, Newlyn, St Ives, and Kirkcudbright. Artists often moved between them and some colonies lasted longer than others. The artists’ colony in Staithes is generally acknowledged to have been in existence between 1894 and 1909, though it’s slightly misleading to use these dates in a precise manner. There were artists in and around Staithes before 1894 and after 1909. However, it is a fact that the idea of a colony, in terms of a group being present and forming a kind of community with an Arts Club which enrolled members, can be placed in the period I’ve pointed to.

Staithes is located in North Yorkshire on the East Coast of England and is approximately ten miles north of Whitby. In 1900, when the artists were there, around 80 fishing boats operated out of Staithes and most of the inhabitants of the village depended on them for work, though there was also some jet mining in the area. The railway had reached Staithes in 1883, so it isn’t true to say it was an isolated community. However, there were signs that even before the First World War both the fishing and the mining were beginning to decline in importance. Larger ports, with better-equipped fleets, were taking over the fishing, and the seams in the mines were running out. Leaving that aside, life in Staithes had always been hard and, for the fishermen, dangerous. The North Sea could be stormy and treacherous.

In various ways an influx of artists, some with families, provided a welcome boost to the local economy. They bought from local businesses and hired local people as models. It’s not my intention to talk about Staithes as it is today. It’s now mostly a tourist attraction because of its picturesque appearance, especially around the harbour. Curiously, there doesn’t seem to have been any serious attempts to capitalise on the one-time presence of an artists’ colony, or that’s the impression I got when I visited Staithes a few years ago. There is a gallery in Whitby which has a room devoted to artists from the Staithes group.

Laura Newton, writing about Staithes, says that “By around 1880 William Gilbert Foster, Frederick Jackson, and Mark Senior, artists who would form the nucleus of the colony, were already working in the area”. And she adds that in the 1880s other artists visited Staithes during the summer months, but didn’t settle there on any kind of permanent basis. This was fairly typical of most artists’ colonies. And it was particularly true of Staithes, where the winter months could be bitterly cold, limiting the possibilities of plein air painting.

In a catalogue for an exhibition of Fred Jackson’s work at Rochdale Art Gallery in 1978, there is a quote from something that Laura Knight wrote about him : “He painted out of doors in any weather. Under the mittens he wore, his hands were swollen, stiff and chapped, as were the edges of his ears and the wings of his nostrils”. The same document has a photo of Jackson and Knight painting on the beach in Runswick, though the nature of their clothing indicates that it wasn’t winter. Jackson painted in various localities, but of his Staithes paintings it’s worth looking at “Fisherwomen by the Quay at Staithes”, “Runswick”, and “The Cottage Garden” for their sense of place and colour. Runswick Bay was adjacent to Staithes and several of the artists lived there.

Laura Knight was probably the best-known artist to have spent time in Staithes, along with her husband, Harold, also a painter. A note in an undated booklet about the Staithes group produced by the Pannett Gallery in Whitby suggests that “Harold was a superior painter to his wife – but due to her popular outgoing nature her paintings sold well”. He was certainly highly-skilled and excelled at portraits, as well as broad scenes of local life, such as “Low Tide, Staithes” and “The Last Coble”. Cobles were the small boats used by the Staithes fishermen. Away from the sea, “A Portrait of Miss X” shows her face in profile against a dark background which adds to the mystery surrounding her name.

As for Laura Knight, she painted a very good view looking down the hillside at Staithes, and a fine picture of a fishing-boat moored by the side of a jetty. I can see why it was thought that Harold was the better painter than Laura, at that time at least, but both had much to offer from the point of view of the quality of their work. It seems to be the case that the Knights eventually found life in Staithes somewhat restrictive, and they moved to Newlyn: Michael Cross, commenting on the situation in Staithes, pointed out that, “Although the artists at Staithes participated in many social events and festivities, the group lacked that vital Bohemian element which was a feature of its counterpart in Cornwall, the Newlyn Group”. There is a novel, Summer in February, by Jonathan Smith which re-creates some of the tensions surrounding the Newlyn and Lamorna groups, and one can’t imagine anything similar being written about the artists in Staithes.

I’ve mentioned just a few of the artists who were in Staithes, though not necessarily all at the same time. Arthur Friedenson painted a dark-toned picture of “The Old Bridge at Staithes”, and Ernest Dade “A Seascape with Steamer”, as well as turning aside a little to paint “Scarborough – A Busy Poet”, which is quite impressive in the way that it pictures a ship of a much larger size than he would have seen at Staithes. Again, away from the sea, Isa Jobling’s splendid “Haymaking” arouses attention. In fact, the calm blue sea can be seen in the background, combining, as Laura Newton put it, “the rural labour subject with a decorative treatment”. Joblin was one of the few women in the Staithes group. Another was Hannah Mayor (née Hoyland) who, when in 1902 her wealthy father forbade her to marry a “penniless artist”, eloped with Fred Mayor, a founder member of the Staithes Art Club. The couple settled in Montreuil-sur-Mer, and only returned to England in 1908. Both Mayors produced attractive watercolours during their days in Staithes.

Looking at paintings from Staithes it is obvious that few, if any of the artists, were trying to break new ground. Some of them are occasionally referred to as English Impressionists (one of the most overworked words in art history), but it’s not an accurate description. Quite a few of them had studied abroad, particularly in Paris at the Académie Julian, and would have been aware of what Monet and others were doing. They may even have absorbed a few ideas from Impressionism, but little more than that. They were just as likely to have been influenced by painters linked to the Barbizon School, and by Jules Bastien-Lepage, who is often seen as a transitional figure between naturalism and impressionism.

Other important sources of inspiration were the painters of the Hague School in Holland. Several Staithes artists visited the art colony at Laren, among them Laura and Harold Knight, Fred Jackson, and Frederick Stuart Richardson. What was once said about the Dutch artists could just as well be applied to those from Staithes: “Their themes were as unelevated as they were classic: landscapes, livestock, interiors. With ever greater subtlety and intimacy, they depicted the Dutch polder landscape, derived poetry from a kitchen or stall and brought to life the joys and sorrows in fishing villages such as Karwijk and Scheveningen”. Change the names and we’re in Staithes. Richardson’s “In for the Morning Market”, with people waiting on the shore for the approaching fishing boats, would be relevant whatever the name. The same can be said for Harold Knight’s “Breakfast” which shows a sparse interior with an elderly man sitting at a table and a young woman approaching him with a cup and saucer. The only light in the room is from the windows. The painting gives the impression of, if not poverty, then certainly a degree of austerity that would have typified the lives of people in fishing villages in both Britain and Holland.

The key thing to note about the Staithes artists is that they didn’t follow a single line of creativity, so can’t be seen under any description other than that they were a group. They didn’t all paint in the same way. The best that can be said of them, in terms of similarities, is that they had all been traditionally trained and kept to ideas of “solid draughtsmanship and a sense of form”. It’s also important to note that they were artists who, for the most part, depended on selling their canvases, and consequently painted what they thought would attract potential buyers. In blunt terms, they could not afford to go to extremes in either form or content. Not every painting needed to be light and inoffensive, but realism could go too far.

I mentioned earlier that the Staithes group is generally considered to have broken up in 1909. Not all the artists moved away. Mark Senior, Fred Jackson, and one o two others, continued to live and work in and around Staithes but, to all intent and purposes, the idea of an art colony had gone.

I can’t claim that Staithes ever achieved the importance of St Ives in British art movements. There isn’t a library of literature about it, as there is about the Cornish art colony, nor do we associate its name with innovations or more than a handful of important artists. Laura Knight may be the only one who comes to mind in this connection. However, a visit to the Pannett Gallery in Whitby will show that some very good artists were members of the Staithes Group.