|
|
||
 |
||
 |
Sarah Louisa Kilpack (1839-1909) Sarah Louisa Kilpack was an artist from the last half of the 19th century who found in the Channel Islands and in Jersey in particular, an ideal environment in which she could express her enigmatic emotions through her paintings with utter certainty and a great deal of charm. She was born in Covent Garden on 15 Decemmber 1839, the second and youngest child of Georgina and Thomas Kilpack, a tobacconist with a shop below the family living quarters.She was a tiny child and, being shy and sensitive, was just as happy to stay indoors playing at the family piano and drawing pictures as she was to be at the play in the melee of the streets outside. Soon a great aptitude both for music and drawing emerged, playing concerts for fees which enabled her to journey out of London to the country where she could sketch. Following a series of family bereavements in 1863, and the consequent financial burden, she needed time to herself and it was probably then that she first came to the Channel Islands to reflect and take stock. She drew immense inspiration from being alone with her thoughts on some remote cliff, being caressed by the forces of nature. It was also a good opportunity to develop her painting techniques and her efforts were soon rewarded with two of her Guernsey paintings exhibited at the eleventh Annual Exhibition of the Society of Female Artists in London and two more selected for exhibition at the British Institute. By 1876 she had struck up a friendship with the Brooke family who lived off Colomberie. Another Jersey family with whom she was in touch was that of Jurat and Mrs Renouf who lived just below Victoria College in St. Saviour's Road. Despite the hospitality of her Jersey hosts she found it difficult to place trust in people and was desperately lonely. It is little wonder then that she found herself at one with the sea and the sky, with moods that rose and fell like the tide, and dark threatening thoughts like the weather she painted so well. But there were also glimpses of her warmth in a languid sunset painting, with the sea gently lapping over the rocks and gulls, preening satisifed and at rest. In the early 1880s Sarah Kilpack enjoyed the best years of her life, earning some £500 a year from her painting. Some prodigious output at six guineas a piece. Sarah was still in touch with the Renouf family right up to the end of her life when, despite her indominitable courage her fight against cancer was finally overcome on 25 October 1909.
Sir Francis Cook | Sarah Louisa Kilpack | Edmund Blampied | Malcolm Arbuthnot | John Le Capelain | Claude Cahun Artists in Jersey | Galleries, Frames and Suppliers | CI Art Books This is Jersey |
 |
 |
||
- abridged from a text by John Falle and originally published by the Jersey Heritage Trust in their Jersey Artists series.