11 Barnaloft
At the heart of the Artist quarter of St Ives - right between the wonderful Penwith Gallery and the recently restored Porthmeor Studios - Barnaloft has always been home to artists. It was built in the early 60s when St Ives was at the height of its Art fame.
Barbara Hepworth lived in two flats ( moving from the top floor one to a ground floor one when she broke a leg) and both flats are still owned by her family.
Bernard Leach lived in one and sold his front room to the neighbour. For £500. Wilhelmina Barns-Graham lived in 1 Barnaloft and had her studio here too.
This is Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in her Barnaloft studio “Wilhelmina Barns-Graham stepped off the train in St Ives on a wet March evening in 1940. She quickly met other artists in the area including Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo, Borlase Smart, and Bernard Leach, who was to become something of a father figure for her.
Modernist British art was making progress in this small Cornish town and Willie, as she was known, fit right in. She stayed there for the rest of her life, working in the Porthmeor Studios initially before buying a house in the Barnaloft Piazza in 1963.
She was constantly inspired by the Cornish coastline and particularly the waves and occupants of Porthmeor Beach that she could watch from her sitting room widow that overlooked it.
Barnaloft won a number of awards when built - including a medal and diploma from the Ministry of Housing for Good Design in 1963
This is a painting called A Barnaloft Flat by Rachel Nicholson, who is one of Barbara Hepworth daughters. (Her father is Ben Nicholson) She still has a flat in Barnaloft.
Another painting by Rachel Nicholson, this one called View from number 18 - which is on the top floor of Barnaloft
And another by Rachel Nicholson; Porthmeor with Blue Bowl
And this is Porthmeor with Fishing Boat by Rachel Nicholson.
“a large Barbara Hepworth that sold for in the region of £2.5m by Belgrave St. Ives Gallery to a private collection. The 1.2m tall bronze work ‘Two Forms in Echelon'(1961) stood from 1963 to around ten years ago in the courtyard of Barnaloft, a block of apartments and studios for artists at Porthmeor Beach, St Ives”
http://www.artsmediacontacts.co.uk/amc/pr.php?id=8918