This collaborative approach highlights the bridge between the Plymouth Society of Artists, founded in 1944, and the St Ives Society of Artists. Central to this relationship is the painter Robert Borlase Smart.

Smart was born in Kingsbridge, Devon in 1881 and studied at the Plymouth School of Art from 1897–1900, then at the Royal College of Art from 1900–01. He continued his studies with Julius Olsson following a move to St Ives in 1913. At the end of his service on the Western Front during the First World War he returned to St Ives where, amongst others, was a prime mover in the formation of the St Ives Society. He quickly established himself as a driving force with the group’s early fortunes. As Secretary and later President in the ‘30s and ‘40s his unbounded energy encouraged the coalescing of the multi-talented forces of the Society.

One-man shows included the Penwith Gallery, St Ives, 1949 and 1981, the City Art Gallery, Plymouth, 1950 and 1975, and as recently as 2014 in the Society’s Crypt Gallery. Although a traditional painter himself, Smart welcomed the modernists into the Society, later to be established as the Crypt Group.

Concurrent with his position as President of STISA he was appointed the Plymouth Society’s first Vice President, continuing in that role until his death in 1947.

As well as work from both societies the exhibition features a small but significant dedication to Borlase Smart that includes a work given by him to the maternal grandfather of PSA member Hilary Soper. Frederick Colley was a painter and picture restorer with an international standing who, during 1924, spent some time in St Ives. He was gifted the painting by Borlase Smart inscribed on the back “as an appreciation of valuable advice given to the artist”.

Moffat Lindner, another painter of distinction in the early years of the St Ives Society, is also represented, as is Clive Williams, a former member of both groups who died in 2005.

Hilary Soper, long standing member of the PSA and inheritor of these familial works, observes “I never knew my grandfather, he died in 1930, but grew up with my grandmother and a lot of pictures and paraphernalia from his career as a painter and restorer. I have a box of letters, newspaper cuttings, photos etc, but most of my “knowledge” came from my grandmother’s narrative. He made regular returns to England and I know he spent time in St Ives in 1924. I presume that was when he met Borlase Smart, who gifted the painting with an inscription on the back “as an appreciation of valuable advice given the artist”.