A Cornish Farmstead

Harold Charles Francis Harvey (1874 – 1941)

Oil on canvas. Signed.

11½” x 15½” (29.2 cm x 39.4 cm)

The only principal member of The Newlyn School to have been born in Cornwall, Harvey painted authentic scenes of Cornish rural and coastal life with an intimate knowledge of the area and its people. He was born in Penzance and grew up in a decade when the neighbouring village of Newlyn was host to one of the most important artistic colonies in the history of British art. Harvey was taught firstly by Norman Garstin in Penzance and then travelled to Paris in 1894. Here, he took full advantage of the tutoring on offer, studying for two years at l’Académie Julian and then at l’Académie Colarossi and l’Académie Delécluse. Influenced by the French rural realism of Jules Bastien-Lepage, Harvey returned from Paris to record the day-to-day lives of the Cornish people. He liked to paint en plein air, in the fields and country lanes, by the harbours and on the shores near his home. Harvey exhibited at the principal galleries throughout Britain, including 55 works at The Royal Academy. A modest, retiring person, he was popular among his fellow artists and is regarded today as one of the most important painters of The Newlyn School.