Eleanor Mary Hughes

Although well known as a leading painter of the Newlyn School of artists, Eleanor Mary Hughes has remained virtually unknown as an etcher until the recent discovery of her estate. Born in New Zealand to Cornish parents, Eleanor Hughes came to England to study in London and in 1907 she became a pupil of Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes at Newlyn, Cornwall. In 1910 she married fellow Newlyn painter Robert Hughes and they settled at Lamorna. In 1912 they designed and built to a house at Chyangweal near St.Buryan where they were to spend the rest of their lives. Eleanor owned a studio in the Lamorna Valley about a mile from the house and it was there that she worked and kept her etchings.

In 1911 Eleanor Hughes began to exhibit at the Royal Academy and later at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. In 1933 she was elected to full membership of the R.I. and by the time the 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, nine at the Glasgow Institute, six at the Walker Gallery and many more elsewhere – besides being an active organiser of the Newlyn and St.Ives exhibitions. In 1940 Eleanor Hughes sold her studio and few paintings were completed after that. She was close lifelong friends with Lamorna Birch and Dame Laura Knight. Eleanor Hughes is soon to be the subject of a major biography which will include a complete catalogue of her original etchings.

All of the etchings offered here carry the artist’s signature stamp guaranteeing that they are from the artist’s personal collection which was inherited in its entirety by her niece, Judith Hughes.