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The South West Film & Television Archive holds many regional television documentaries that follow artists and craftspeople that have lived or worked in the South West area. Two of these unique documentaries look at key British artists who lived in the Cornish town of St Ives. One of these documentaries, 'Barbara Hepworth', features the work of the internationally acclaimed abstract sculptor who set up her studio in St Ives during the 1940s, helping to establish the town as a significant focal point for artists of all kinds. The other of these documentaries, 'The Potter's Art' focuses on the life and work of Bernard Leach who was the founding father of studio pottery in the UK, who set up his workshop in St Ives in the 1920s and continued to work there until the 1970s. Both films include extensive and rare interviews with the artists themselves and both are now used by the Archive in arts based shows around the region, as well as being viewed by artists as reference work for research. The making of arts based programmes was and is quite rare in regional television and Westward Television were unusual in their commitment to covering arts issues in the region. Aside from individual documentaries, the station also had a regular arts programme ‘Forum', as well as covering arts issues in news items on topics such as regional artists receiving awards, amateur arts exhibitions and competitions. Westward television featured many other aspects of regional life in the South West, including for example news items such as one on 'Risqué dresses' in 1970 and items on the Beatles arriving in Plymouth in the 1960s, as well as the more expected news items. |
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