'March Sky, Cape Cornwall' by Karl Weschke

Weschke was born on 7 July 1925 and spent the first seven years of his life in an orphanage. When he eventually went to live with his mother he described it as a ‘brutish existence’. He only met his father once when he was 11 years old.

In an article published in the Telegraph in early 2004, just before a major retrospective of Weschke’s work opened at Tate St Ives, journalist John McEwen described him as a person who had lived two different lives.

The first of these was from 1925-48, a time when, in addition to the poverty he experienced living with his mother, he was a member of the Hitler Youth, a World War I commando and a Prisoner of War in Watten, Britain’s toughest internment camp. Shell-shocked from battle he began to paint and sculpt. He was then transferred to Radwinter, an open prison near Cambridge, where his talents were encouraged.

The second of Weschke’s lives was from 1948-2005. By this point he had decided to become an artist. It took a long time for him to establish himself and he had a variety of unusual jobs including a gravestone carver, a tree planter, a lion tamer’s assistant at a circus and a scuba diver. On one occasion he was given up for dead from the bends.

After spending time in Italy, Spain and Sweden in the early 1950s he moved to Cornwall in 1955. He lived in Zennor first. He then settled in a small house on Cape Cornwall overlooking the sea in 1960.

Exhibitions of Weschke’s work during the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s were well received. He was even selected for inclusion in the first-ever British Art Show in 1979.

When he died on 20 February 2005 he left a wife and five children - one of whom he did not see for the first 45 years of her life and two of whom he raised virtually single-handedly.

Although he was never a central member of the St Ives School he was friends with a number of them. His artistic style was different to theirs however - expressionist rather than abstract, and with a darker palette.

March Sky, Cape Cornwall typifies this - a brooding, dramatic earth-coloured work that gives a sense of Weschke’s emotion and the sensation rather than the exact features of the surroundings that he captured on canvas.

Discover more about Karl Weschke in this article on ArtUK.

The Levinsky Gallery at the University of Plymouth will host an exhibition of Karl Weschke's work from 18 October 18-13 December 2025. The exhibition is part of the centenary celebrations for the artist.