Virginia Woolf and the Artistic Heritage of St. Ives

Virginia Stephen enjoyed the happiest summers of her life in St. Ives until the lease of Talland House was sold in 1895. The Stephen family were actively involved in the St. Ives’ arts scene: Leslie and Julia were among the first to join the St. Ives Arts Club; while in St. Ives Vanessa (Woolf records) enjoyed “painting in water-colours, and scratching a number of black little squares, after Ruskin’s prescription”(MOB 31); leading local painters Louis Grier and Julius Olsson were known to the family and dined at Talland House; Vanessa, as other painters, shopped at Lanham’s art shop and attended the annual Studio Day; Woolf’s half-brothers played cricket when the St. Ives Artists’ Eleven played. The artist Lily Kirkpatrick, lover of Edith Ellis, lived close by in Talland Road from 1893. Many London artists, including Vanessa and Virginia’s friend Eliza (Lisa) Stillman visited Talland House. Following the scholarship of Marion Dell, Diane Gillespie, Leslie Hankins, and Marion Whybrow this paper will examine these moments of St. Ives art and their possible impact on Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s first memories of St. Ives she recorded aesthetically “if I were a painter I should paint these first impressions in pale yellow, silver and green” (MOB 66).