Le Grice, Le Grys et al.

British 1936-2012 Jeremy Le Grice's work is indisoluably bound to Cornwall not only in the obvious physical sense - he has lived and worked there for most of his life - but crucially as a state of mind and being. Jeremy Le Grice studied fine art at the Guildford School of Art, he then went on to study at the Lanyon summer school in St Ives. Peter Lanyon encouraged him to continue painting and after one year of close contact with Lanyon and the other St Ives artists at the time, he developed a more extrovert approach that embraced confidence with enjoyment of workmanship and the craft of painting. He then went on to study at the Slade School of Art, London in 1957. Jeremy having completed his studies returned to Cornwall until the 70's, when in need of a change, he travelled aboard an old sailing vessel to California. From there he toured Mexico and most of America thus broadening the basis of his work. By the mid 80's he- Jeremy Le Grice was back in his beloved Cornwall, painting with renewed vigour the landscape experienced so intimately since earliest childhood. "when I'm painting my prime concern isn't to portray a place or phenomenon of the landscape or weather, but, actually, one is trying to accumulate as a system of colour, that which has its own rhythm, and light, and life. And it's almost incidental, as one is painting, that one is using as a vehicle for these qualities, a particular place or a particular scene - it matters less, although curiously enough, when people see the pictures they say "that's just like the place." Jeremy Le Grice "Evidently Le Grice would agree with Chardin when he said "I'm not painting a still life, I'm painting my feeling of it". And the colour has become marvellously evocative and varied; there is a tingling sense of enjoyment which is precious and rare in an English painter of the out of doors." John Davie 1990

Le Grice at Seventy Thursday, 05 October 2006 One of the country's most distinguished artists is celebrating his 70th birthday with a unique exhibition at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro.Jeremy Le Grice has lived and worked in Cornwall for most of his life so it is appropriate that the county which has inspired so much of his work should provide the venue for this exciting retrospective. Featuring 70 paintings - from Sailor which won him a medal at the Royal Drawing Society's National Child Art Exhibition when he was only nine to the Lugger Ripple, a trio of charcoal drawings which he finished this year - the exhibition charts Jeremy's progress as both artist and man. "It spans my whole lifetime," said Jeremy, whose studio overlooks Newlyn harbour. "When Sailor won me that medal I knew I wanted to be an artist so it is the first painting everyone sees when they walk in. "I was also very proud of the self-portrait I did whilst I was at Eton. It realised my ambition of winning the school painting prize against fierce competition and I got great encouragement from Wilfred Blunt, the senior drawing master. That painting is hanging next to others that I drew at school." Other famous works include Alsia Studio (1993) which represents the challenge faced by every artist when confronted by a partly blank canvas, Menstrual Moon (2000) which is about the absence of sunlight and Sennen Window (1987), a celebration of the nearby beach and sea. Whilst Jeremy won't be able to talk to every visitor individually about his lifetime journey in art, the wonderfully comprehensive catalogue that accompanies the exhibition should prove a comparable guide. Written by Jeremy, it is a clear example of his literary as well as his artistic abilities. Le Grice at Seventy was launched this week with a private view attended by hundreds of Jeremy's friends and museum guests. Curatorial assistant Suhashini Sinha provided musical entertainment with her clarinet and, prior to a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday, a tribute from William Packer, the Financial Times art critic, was read out by museum director Hilary Bracegirdle. Mr Packer wrote: "Throughout the 10 years that I have known Jeremy's work I have been struck by its intensity and energy, the innate sense it displays of progression and the use he makes of silhouette within his own spaces. "Jeremy Le Grice has always been his own man. He is the artist and painter he professes himself to be, with maturity absorbed positively. "Year after year he returns to the themes he has seen and felt most strongly about living in Cornwall, his work is thus as Cornish as can be. "He has always used his eye idiosyncratically, and made paintings beautifully."

Obituary Western Morning News Larger-than-life painter of Cornwall and the sea Wednesday, August 15, 2012 Frank Ruhrmund Fellow artists and art lovers throughout Cornwall will be shocked and saddened to learn that much-loved painter Jeremy Le Grice has died at his home at Trereife near Newlyn. One of Cornwall's most prominent artists, larger than life in every sense, while he may have painted and padded around in bare feet in his garden studio high above Newlyn harbour, no-one took his art more seriously than he did. An old Etonian, he also attended the Guildhall School of Art and Peter Lanyon's celebrated St Peter's Loft School in St Ives. He later moved on to the Slade in London, where he studied for four years. It was there that he met fellow student Mary Stork, who was to become his first wife and who died in 2007. Although he made little of his days at Eton, when invited to present the inaugural exhibition in its new gallery, Jeremy revealed that during his visit there he was asked to take a couple of A-level classes, one of which was attended by none other than Prince Harry. With a smile as broad as Newlyn harbour, Jeremy also recalled being put over the thrashing block and beaten as a student, but could not remember what he had done to warrant such punishment. Coming of age at a time when the post-war avant garde art movement in Penwith was at its height, almost inevitably he was influenced by the leading modern lights of the period, in particular by Peter Lanyon and Roger Hilton and to such a degree that, as he freely admitted, it took him a while to realise that he was not destined to follow in their footsteps and walk the road towards abstraction. It is likely that the break from his work which occurred in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, when he devoted his time and energy to teaching others and to helping his second wife Lyn to develop her business and career as an interior designer, was instrumental in strengthening his resolve to go his own way and, regardless of fashions and trends, to paint what he saw and felt. Neither purely representational nor abstract in approach, his work concerned the actual process of painting as much a sense of place or a depiction of subject matter. As real as paintings can ever be, they reflect the desire he had to "stick to his guns", his wish and proven ability to say what he liked using his own powerful language. Although in no way depressing, the word "dark" has often been used to describe his work, and his use of the colour black to create light within his work was a built-in paradox which added to its mystery and magic. He was at his very best when exploring the "dark of the moon", when contemplating both the granite navel of Cornwall and of himself. One who worked with a boyish enthusiasm which belied his vast experience, Jeremy Le Grice approached, or rather attacked, his compositions with a gusto which was infectious. Within minutes of talking to him in his studio he made one feel like picking up a brush and joining in the fun. While he loved life in the fast lane, exhibiting extensively, many will remember with pleasure his magnificent retrospective held in the Royal Cornwall Museum in celebration of his 70th birthday. A man of the ocean, his seafaring experiences included an Atlantic crossing under sail, and his marine paintings are as salty as they are solid. As cargo they carry all the contradictory elements that make up the fatal attraction of the ocean and convey a sense of the speed with which it can switch from being delightful to deadly. A member of Penwith Society of Artists in St Ives and Newlyn Society of Artists, with which he exhibited often, he was also a trustee of Newlyn Art Gallery, fighting hard for all it stood for. To say that Jeremy Le Grice will be missed is an understatement. He leaves a huge gap in the art fabric of Cornwall: although impossible to fill, it brings to mind something he once said when talking about how much he missed Newlyn: "When I was first sent away to school my protesting mind was left behind to listen intently at night for the howl of a gale down the Coombe." It is comforting to think that, just as his paintings, in which sensitivity, subtlety and substance come together in a satisfying whole, are still with us, so, too, is Jeremy Le Grice's protesting mind. He is survived by the children of his first marriage, Anna, Tom and Harriet, and his second wife Lyn and their son Jude. The funeral service will be held in St Buryan Church at 2pm on August 23.

Jeremy le Grice died at home, 9th August 2012 at dawn. We had very sad news from Lyn le Grice, that Jeremy died on Thursday. He was being nursed at home and died peacefully with his family around him. Jeremy has been a big part of Les Bassacs since we started in 1990. This year was the first year that he wasn't teaching his popular oil painting course. This was due to his ill health. His inimitable style, his zest for life, his enthusiasm and energy and his good-humoured optimism will be sorely missed by us and those who knew him. We send our condolences to Lyn, his children, Tom, Anna, Harriet and Jude as well as to his grandchildren.

Guardian Obituary David Whittaker guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 September 2012 14.44 BST Jeremy Le Grice The artist Jeremy Le Grice was besotted with Newlyn, Cornwall, where he painted every aspect of the working harbour – from rusting hulls to the fish market To walk around the Cornish town of Newlyn in the company of my friend the painter Jeremy Le Grice was a lively instruction concerning all things maritime. From the time he was pushed along the quay in his pram until his death at the age of 75, Jeremy was besotted with the place. Nearly every aspect of this working harbour found its way into his art. From rusting old hulls to the structural foundations of the fish market to the ebb and flow of tides, he managed to convey its salty tastes and smells. He painted further afield but Newlyn remained the still point of his sometimes shambolic world. Jeremy's art was an attempt to find emotional solutions to his varying preoccupations. He was deeply haunted, from the age of three, by the death of his father at Dunkirk and his mother's subsequent nervous breakdown. These events may account for his partiality to the lower, muted register of colours. Far from being gloomy, the effect is of an iridescent interplay between dark and light that evokes mystery and hints at hidden secrets. At Eton, where he was educated free as the son of an old Etonian killed in the war, he received instruction in draughtsmanship from Wilfrid Blunt (brother of the art historian and spy Anthony). Soon after leaving school, Jeremy was particularly fortunate to attend Peter Lanyon's provocative art classes in St Ives, before going to the Slade, where he met his first wife, Mary Stork. They settled back in Cornwall and had three children, Anna, Tom and Harriet. Shortly after the marriage ended, in around 1969, Jeremy, who liked to seize the day, boarded a ship in Falmouth harbour with a group of strangers and sailed across the Atlantic, with some gripping adventures along the way. Jeremy Le Grice was fascinated by all things maritime. On his return Jeremy took up residence with his new wife, Lyn, a designer, and their son, Jude, in the Cotswolds, where he taught at Cheltenham and Hereford. This proved to be disastrous for his art. Feeling landlocked and far from his true element he hardly painted for the 14 years they lived there. A return to Cornwall in 1985 saw this block evaporate and henceforth in his art he embraced the quality of creative recklessness in defiance of what he described as "the tight-arsed school of merchandise production". An artist of stubborn integrity and lyrical vision, he was also hugely popular as an effusive character with an infectious enthusiasm for life. He is survived by Lyn and his children.

Obituary A long-standing member of the Penwith Society of Arts, from his garden studio in Newlyn he had a seagull's eye view of the harbour and Mounts Bay and, not surprisingly, it often inspired his paintings. A man of the sea, he once crossed the Atlantic under sail, and he produced marine paintings that were far from pretty but salty and solid. It has been said that, "while a certain romance may dance across their surfaces, they are rooted in realism. As cargo they carry all the contradictory elements that make up the fatal attraction of the sea, possess similar power and depth, and convey a sense of the speed with which it can switch from being delightful to deadly." An artist who was in such demand that there were moments when he had as many as two or three solo shows sailing along together. His Quay Series has the same bright-eyed look of freshly caught mackerel as it had when he first painted it. While this exhibition also pays tribute to two other stalwarts of the society who are no longer with us, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Breon O' Casey, it is essentially about the present and not the past and, happily, there are enough works of art here to show that this historic society is still alive and kicking.