Abstract

In this talk Bridget identifies the colony of artists of the late 19th and early 20th century who worked around St Ives (in Huntingdonshire) and its nearby riverside villages. Following the area’s ‘discovery’ by the art world in 1880, well over 150 professional artists came here. The artists were sociable in groups of friends; some came for a week, some stayed a summer, others came regularly for several years or made the place their home. The gentle landscape, with a river free of commercial traffic, and small, rural villages with thatched cottages and watermills, provided for quiet pastoral scenes popular with city patrons who were frequently nostalgic for a pre-industrial age. Tourists followed, attracted to a place that was recognised as picturesque, and the place became a well-known riverside holiday venue.