John Anthony Park Biography
John Anthony Park specialised in landscapes and marine subjects, many of which were inspired by St. Ives in Cornwall, where he spent the greater part of his life.
Born in Preston 1880, he started work at the age of eight in a cotton mill and later worked with his father as a decorator. He first visited St. Ives in 1899 and his works so impressed the marine painter Julius Olsson, that he gave him free tuition. Park then went to Paris and continued his studies at the Atelier Colarossi.
In 1927, Park, together with several other artists including Moffat Lindner, Bernard leach and Mrs Shearer Armstrong, founded the St. Ives Society of Artists and later acquired Olsson's studio as their gallery. They also revived the tradition of show days held each year in March when they invited the public to preview the paintings which they later submitted to the Royal Academy. Park became particularly admired for his pictures of St. Ives harbour and 'Downlong', the old fishermen's quarter, and many of these subjects were reproduced as postcards and prints.
Park exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1905 to 1949, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, of which he was elected a member in 1923, and the Royal Society of British Artists, of which he was elected a member in 1932. He also exhibited at the Paris Salon, where he was awarded a bronze medal in 1924. He held a one-man show at the Ruskin Gallery in Birmingham which was sold out in two days, and in 1940 his painting entitled Snow falls on Exmoor was acquired for the Tate Gallery, under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest.
Towards the end of his life in 1952, Park left St. Ives and for a short period he lived in Brixham, Devon. he then returned to his native town Preston, where he died in 1962.