Biddy Picard


Born in 1922 in Derbyshire, she arrived in Cornwall as a crabber after the War.  Her first view of Cornwall was from the sea and this often forms the viewpoint in her paintings – ‘Penwith a fist of land thrust into the sea, full of wildness, strength and magic’.  Biddy’s paintings have a strong sense of line and there is humour in her own blend of still life combined with harbour scene. 

She attended Chesterfield School of Art before training at the Slade.  She taught at Bristol for a short period and then moved to Wales.  1974 she arrived in Cornwall.  She has been a longstanding member of the Newlyn Society of Artists and has taught both painting and ceramics at Penzance School of Art. 

Of her work she says “I try in my painting to convey some of the particular magic of West Penwith; the feeling of remoteness, the intensity of light and the rapid changes of mood. Thrusting into a restless sea, it is an “end place” where little harbours cling to the stern granite rocks, for me a special land unlike any other”. 
 
For Biddy Picard painting is like music, with its own ‘song to sing’, - colour and shape creating mood and atmosphere in an attempt to capture something of the wildness, strength and magic of this fist of land thrust into the sea, which is Penwith.