Henry Scott Tuke Biography

Henry Scott Tuke had lived in Falmouth as a boy, and visited since, but in May 1885 he left London to settle there to paint, and remained there for the rest of his life. He was encouraged to settle in the area by the gathering at Newlyn of plein air painters such as Stanhope Forbes. But Tuke chose Falmouth, partly perhaps to distance himself from the Newlyn group, and also for practical purposes. He stated in 1895 that his principal artistic concern was "to paint the nude in the open air; here there are quiet beaches, some of them hardly accessible by boat where one may paint from the life model undisturbed". The busy, openly accessible beaches of Newlyn could never have offered this privacy, and Tuke seems to have always been concerned with the probity of his artistic practice, as his description of ceasing painting with the intrusion of "females" in Italy confirms. At first Tuke was worried about finding models, and brought with him from London a boy perhaps improbably named Walter Shilling, who modelled for him at the Slade. Stanhope Forbes reported that Tuke "could get no models and has been painting this British youth in the style the British matron so strongly objects to.