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| November 2nd | Joan Gillchrest (Birth) |
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The famous painter of Mousehole, much loved by the public loved but critically extremely unpopular, Joan Gillchrest (1918 – 2008), born Joan Gilbert Scott was the great grand daughter of George Gilbert Scott, the niece of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and the daughter of a distinguished radiologist who had worked with Marie Curie and developed radiotherapy medical treatments. After a year in Paris to learn French, Gillchrest studied at the Grosvenor School of Art and after one brief, failed, marriage moved to Chelsea, renting a flat and studio one floor above Adrian Ryan (December 15th) who became her partner in 1957. Gillchrest and Ryan set up home in Mousehole in 1959 and she built a studio in the garden of their cottage. Ryan used the view to create his series of ‘Mousehole Rooftops’ pictures but saw no virtue in Gillchrest’s paintings, to the extent of turning her works to the wall when they had visitors. They were popular in Mousehole having originated the idea of the, now world famous, Mousehole Christmas lights in 1963 when she put up a string of Christmas lights. Gillchrest ended their tempestuous relationship when she wrote to Ryan, then temporarily in Camden Town, telling him that she had sent all his paintings and belongings to Harrods Depository and telling him never to come back. A brilliant, almost cartoonist artist, Gillchrest’s skills only seriously became admired towards the end of her life, when modest as ever, she expressed simple delight that others enjoyed her work.
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