John Milne

John Milne (1931-1978) is regarded as one of the most interesting and sophisticated of the sculptors associated with St. Ives. He was a modernist abstract sculptor who was influenced by the Cornish landscape, and later also the architecture of Greece, Persia and North Africa. Milne’s early work was directly carved in stone, but from 1966 he started experimenting with metals and learned cold casting methods for bronze and aluminium.

Milne was a pupil under Barbara Hepworth, and then worked as her assistant. In 1957 he purchased Trewyn House, a large property in St Ives next door to Hepworth’s studio.

Sadly John Milne died at the early age of 47 in 1978, which was seen as a huge blow for the St. Ives artist community.

Text: Ben Crack