Name Robert Smart | ||
Robert Borlase Smart(1881-1947) worked as a journalist (art editor and critic on the Western Morning News/Illustrated Western Weekly News from 1901 to 1913) but is principally known as an artist, in which capacity he became a founding member of the St Ives school during the years following his return or the first world war.
Born at Kingsbridge, early on he studied with F J Snell in Devon. Later he studied with Julius Olsson. He joined the artists rifles and served through the war. In 1916 he met and established a lifelong friendship with Leonard Fuller while they were producing illustrations of the Lewis gun.
When the war ended he returned with his wife to St Ives, where a school of artists formed around them. Borlase Smart published a number of books on the techniques of painting, and was a key figure in establishing a permanent home for the St Ives Society of Arts in the Mariners' Church.