Percy Craft

An English artist, an active member of the art group “New School”.

Percy Robert Craft was born into a wealthy family, received a good home education. In the 1870s, he studied painting at the Hetarli Art School and at the London School of Arts Slade.

He directed the Newlyn Artists’ Dramatic Society in Newlyn Artists, assisted Thomas Gotch in organizing the Newlyn Industrial Classes (classes of applied arts), where local teenagers were invited for training. He was the organizer and constant participant of expositions at the London Royal Academy of Arts, as well as at the newly formed Royal British Colonial Society of Artists.

Key ideas:

– Newlin with its surroundings attracted Percy Craft by its abundance of light, the magnificent scenery of the countryside on the coast. This is important for working in an open air, but most importantly – one could observe the simplicity of the life of fishermen, their healthy lifestyle, not spoiled by urbanization, which caused admiration of many artists. Some of his colleagues depicted dramas caused by dangerous fishing in the sea, while Craft preferred to glorify workers, expressing his attitude through a light, but not too bright a gamma of colors and shades.

– The artist, preferring outdoor painting (plain air), mostly uses pure colors, often neglecting the academic rules of perspective, as is typical of Impressionists and Post-impressionists. Horizontally deployed and mostly balanced compositions, often multi-figured, can be called epic narrative canvases.

– In the portrait genre, the painter preferred to depict a model almost full-length (John Linton of Stirlo, 1896), often choosing unexpected camera angles and color solutions. So, in her portrait, Olivia Linton Montgomery in a white dress is standing with her back to the viewer with hands clasped behind her, in which she holds white flowers. The face of the young woman is depicted in profile.

– The master’s landscapes, lyrical and discreet, are created in a style close to Romanticism. On these canvases, most often there is a person or animals.