Eleanor Hughes was born in Christchurch, New Zealand to Cornish parents in 1892 and studied at Canterbury Art College and with expatriate British painter Charles Worsley. In 1907 she moved to England, where she studied at Frank Spenlove-Spenlove's Yellow Door Studio in London and the Forbes School of Painting and Drawing in Newlyn, Cornwall. In 1910 Eleanor married a fellow Newlyn painter, Robert Hughes, with whom she settled in Lamorna, where she produced watercolours and etchings that explored the local landscape, and exhibited widely.
Painter and printmaker Eleanor Mary Hughes, neé Waymouth, was born on 3 April 1882 in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Cornish parents. She studied at Canterbury Art College and at the age of 18 she won a medal from the Canterbury Fine Arts Society for her work. She also studied with expatriate British painter Charles Worsley between 1901 and 1903.
In order to further her artistic education, in 1907 she moved to London, where she studied at Frank Spenlove-Spenlove's Yellow Door Studio, an art school specialising in landscape painting. The founder allowed his pupils great freedom to express their individuality and to develop their own style. Hughes subsequently settled in Newlyn in Cornwall, where she became a pupil of the artists Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes. Inspired by the Barbizon school in France, the couple had established the Forbes School of Painting and Drawing in 1899, encouraging artists to paint en plein-air and to use subject matter drawn from scenes of rural life. Newlyn became a lively artistic colony and attracted, among others, New Zealand expatriate artists Mina Arndt, Frances Hodgkins, Dorothy K. Richmond and Margaret Stoddart. In 1910 Hughes married fellow Newlyn painter, Robert Hughes, and they settled at the fishing village of Lamorna. In 1912, they designed and built a house at Chyangweal near St. Buryan, where they were to spend the rest of their lives. The house became a regular social centre for artists living in the area and Hughes, a talented pianist, often lead recitals. In Cornwall the couple became lifelong friends with Laura Knight and her husband Harold Knight, both of whom painted their portraits a number of times; Eleanor was also a close friend of leading local painter, Samuel John Lamorna Birch. In the 1920s and 1930s, she made frequent trips to Spain and France with her husband. Like many New Zealand émigré artists she remained in touch with her family and her supporters back home, regularly sending her works for exhibitions and sale.
Hughes had a studio in the Lamorna Valley, about a mile from the house from where she produced mainly landscapes in watercolours, favouring trees, stone walls, waterfalls and streams of the local area. She used broad washes to capture the effects of light and, over the surface of the watercolour washes and brushwork, she also applied pencil to help define the texture and form of a tree or to add detail to foliage. Her subtle touch and meticulous compositional process was further revealed by pencil lines apparent under the washes. Catherine Wallace, curator of the seminal exhibition Women Artists in Cornwall 1880-1940 at Falmouth Art Gallery (1996), wrote that Hughes ‘had a particularly delicate style which has been compared to that of Rennie Mackintosh' (Cornish Artists website).
In 1911 Hughes began to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts and her work was often singled out in the press: in 1916 her ‘pleasant and well balanced watercolour’ Travelloe, ‘worked out with Preraphaelite detail’, was praised in The Field; in 1922 Hughes’ watercolour Autumn Morning was singled out by the Times and reproduced alongside other noteworthy pieces; in 1924 The Observer art critic Paul Konody noted that The Whych Elm was ‘well composed and charmingly executed’ (Konody 1924, p. 10). Her watercolour Guillestre, depicting a French village, was included in the illustrated fine arts magazine The Studio in 1927. Hughes was also a regular exhibitor at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, becoming a full member in 1933. By the time Second World War broke out, she had exhibited 34 works at the Royal Institute, 37 at the Royal Academy, seven at the New English Art Club (NEAC), nine at the Glasgow Institute, six at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, as well as at other venues. In addition, she was an active organiser of Newlyn and St. Ives exhibitions. In the late 1930s, she took up etching. In her Lamorna studio, she etched local stone buildings at Trewoofe and Boleigh Farm, as well as the surrounding trees, especially the Cornish elms. She also etched several plates while abroad in the Alps and the Pyrenees. In 1940 she sold her studio and essentially ceased painting and etching. Eleanor Hughes died in Lamorna, Cornwall, England in 1959. Her work is represented in UK public collections including the British Museum and Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Eleanor Hughes]
Publications related to [Eleanor Hughes] in the Ben Uri Library