St Ives Archive: Hyman Segal – Caricaturist of cats and people I recently wrote an article entitled Tales from the Sloop, and while researching this subject I became interested in the lovely sketches created by Hyman Segal, many of which have adorned the walls of this historic St Ives pub for decades. I am not an artist, nor do I pretend to know anything about art – but I have now decided that Hyman Segal is my favourite artist of all time. Born in London in 1914, he first came to St Ives in 1946 on his return from serving in Africa in the Second World War. His initial sight of the town and harbour was from the Malakoff, and as he later stated in one of his books, it was love at first sight. It would appear that, unusually, Segal was accepted by both fellow artists and townsfolk. This is apparent from the hundreds of caricatures he drew of local people, and fishermen in particular. An
evacuee to the town during the Second World War once told me that he sketched her in her Aladdin pantomime costume after a performance at the Guildhall. He also sketched Abraham Curnow (Abram as he was known locally) several times: Abram was the town crier and road sweeper for many years. The artist was also brilliant at drawing cats – and, of course, there were plenty of cats around in St Ives in the 1950s and 60s. He could create a likeness with as few as seven strokes of a brush. Hyman Segal worked from a studio overlooking Porthmeor Beach, and became one of the most distinguished members of the St Ives art colony. He was a committee
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