JOAN GILLCHREST

Gallery opening hours - Saturday - 11am-5pm, or by prior arrangement.
Art World Gallery.
Blackminster Business Park.
Near Evesham.
WR11 7RE.
01386 834403 + 07913 848515.
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JOAN GILLCHREST was born in London in 1918 where her father, Dr Sebastian Gilbert Scott, encouraged her to paint.

In 1933 Joan went to Paris, where she studied in various studios including Gwen John's. On returning to London she attended the Grosvenor School of Modern Art under Iain Macnab and her work started to gain recognition. She exhibited at the New English Art Club in 1937, at various group shows and the Royal Academy in 1936 and 1946.

At the outbreak of war in 1939, Joan became a Volunteer Ambulance Driver. She married in 1942, had a daughter in 1943 and a son in 1947. Serious painting started again in 1953, working from a studio in Tite Street, Chelsea, where she shared the premises with the artist Adrian Ryan. They both moved to Cornwall in 1958 and Joan bought her cottage in Mousehole. There she lived among artists of the day including Francis Bacon, William Scott, Augustus John, but she produced little of her own work until the late 60's.

She was greatly encouraged by John Hawkes of the Newlyn Orion Gallery. Jack Wood Palmer from the Arts Council was a great mentor and friend, and arranged a very successful exhibition at the Plymouth Art Gallery in 1969. Over the next ten years she devoted herself to painting, holding many one-woman exhibitions in Devon and Cornwall, and elsewhere.

Joan considered her greatest influence to have been Christopher Wood and loved the art of Alfred Wallis. Inspiration and ideas have come from observing people and life in the Cornish fishing villages.