Stanley Gardiner (1888-1952)

1888 - 1952

Stanley Horace Gardiner was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1888.

When he left school he was apprenticed to a home decorator and he frequently painted on card with house paint. He won a scholarship to the University of Reading. He also studied at the Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art, Hospitalfield, Arbroath in Scotland.

Gardiner taught for a time at University College, Reading and subsequently moved to America where he lived and worked until returning to England in World War 1 to enrol and serve in the Armed Forces.

In the mid 1920s he moved to Lamorna, near Penzance in Cornwall. He lived there from 1923 (until his death in 1952). From this time he was heavily influenced and encouraged by the artist Samuel John Lamorna Birch. Initially when he first arrived in Cornwall, he struggled with extreme hardship, until he formed a small painting school at home at Lily Cottage and build his own studio, Bludor. He regularly took his students into the open air to paint. He also made frames for Lamorna Birch and Stanhope Forbes to make ends meet.

Three years later, in 1926, Gardiner studied at the Forbes School and showed at the Newlyn Art Gallery in the Christmas exhibition of that year.

There is a portrait of Stanley Gardiner at Penlee House, Penzance which was painted in 1938 by the artist Richard Copeland Weatherby. It was first shown at STISA and then known to have hung at the Royal Academy in 1945. It depicts Gardiner “who stands legs astride, ... show more

Stanley Horace Gardiner was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1888.

When he left school he was apprenticed to a home decorator and he frequently painted on card with house paint. He won a scholarship to the University of Reading. He also studied at the Patrick Allan-Fraser School of Art, Hospitalfield, Arbroath in Scotland.

Gardiner taught for a time at University College, Reading and subsequently moved to America where he lived and worked until returning to England in World War 1 to enrol and serve in the Armed Forces.

In the mid 1920s he moved to Lamorna, near Penzance in Cornwall. He lived there from 1923 (until his death in 1952). From this time he was heavily influenced and encouraged by the artist Samuel John Lamorna Birch. Initially when he first arrived in Cornwall, he struggled with extreme hardship, until he formed a small painting school at home at Lily Cottage and build his own studio, Bludor. He regularly took his students into the open air to paint. He also made frames for Lamorna Birch and Stanhope Forbes to make ends meet.

Three years later, in 1926, Gardiner studied at the Forbes School and showed at the Newlyn Art Gallery in the Christmas exhibition of that year.

There is a portrait of Stanley Gardiner at Penlee House, Penzance which was painted in 1938 by the artist Richard Copeland Weatherby. It was first shown at STISA and then known to have hung at the Royal Academy in 1945. It depicts Gardiner “who stands legs astride,

palette in left hand, brush to the fore, facing his easel with the Lamorna Quay in the background” according to D Bradfield.

Stanley Gardiner was elected as an Associate of RWS and a member of the New Society of Artists, also drawing at the Fine Art Society, the RWA, Irish Salon, Royal Academy, Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the Berkshire Art Society. He had his first one-man show in London in 1939 showing 42 paintings of Cornwall.

Gardiner is known as a painter of landscapes and still life (mainly flowers) and as a teacher. He painted in the Lamorna Valley and is also known as a great exponent of the Plein Air tradition of painting. This can be seen in his unique style and treatment of his landscapes.

He wrote a book entitled “A Painter’s Paradise, memories of an artist’s son growing up in Lamorna”.

Gardiner certainly makes his beloved Lamorna Valley look like a paradise in his paintings and one feels the sense of standing next to him and his easel en plein air when one encounters his work.