Penzance Harbour

Now recognised as one of the country's foremost 20th century naïve painters, Pearce was born with Phenylketonuria, which affects the normal development of the brain. He is particularly well known for portraying the local St Ives landscape and still-life compositions. This painting is PearceÂ’s largest ever work and was exhibited extensively as a key work. One of the special qualities of PearceÂ’s work is his almost obsessive recording of what he had seen, and this work is no exception: although he simplified views and left out facets of the actual scene, each detail recorded is exactly as seen – he never invented any part of his works – and thus this work provides a fascinating snapshot of the harbour, dockside activities and boats in Penzance as they were in 1963.