Peter Davies: The Crypt Group 1946-49

A collective of young thirty-something artists, the Crypt Group hosted three transformative exhibitions in 1946-8 in the basement of the deconsecrated Mariners' Church on the St Ives harbour front. 1949 saw the foundation of the Penwith Society of Artists, a modernist breakaway from the tradition-bound impressionistic St Ives Society of Artists. These seismic events came with the glow of an optimistic and constructive post-war world encompassing the welfare state and the 1951 Festival of Britain.