S J Lamorna Birch Biography
Landscape painter, principallly of Cornwall, born in Egremont, Cheshire. Lamorna Birch's early youth was spent working in an office and in cotton mills, sometimes designing, in Lancashire, where he painted part-time. Mainly self-taught apart from a short period at Atelier Colarossi, Paris, in 1895. From the late 1880s he visited the Penzance region. At this time Stanhope Forbes influenced his work. Eventually settled at Lamorna, adding this to his own name to avoid confusion with the painter Lionel Birch. Exhibited prolifically at Fine Art Socitey, where he had one-man shows, RWS, Walker's Galleries, RA, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and elsewhere, in 1937 he painted in New Zeland. Elected RA, 1934, Tate Gallery holds his work, which found its way into many collections, and Falmouth Art Gallery gave him a retrospective in 1997, which toured to Plymouth.