Albert Reuss at Truro Cathedral

We were busy with our display on Holocaust Memorial Day at Truro Cathedral (27 January 2020). So didn't have much of a chance to look at the Albert Reuss paintings on display to mark the occasion. They are stunning. Reuss was a Jewish painter and sculptor, born in Vienna, who fled to England in 1938 after Hitler's annexation of Austria.
He and his wife, Rosa, fled with very few possessions. They ended up in the house of Cornishman John Sturge Stephens in St Mawes, where Reuss started to relaunch his career. In 1948 he moved to Mousehole where he lived until his death in 1975.
His style changed, reflecting the trauma he had suffered. It's the work of an artist in exile - quite bleak and desolate compared to his early work.


A 1935 painting of his wife, Rosa (called Woman reading with mother-in-law's tongue) compared wwith Figure and Tree Stump (1967) ...

Media archive records Cornwall's stories and history

One of the most interesting aspects of our  Heart of Conflict project is the range of media that we are uncovering and that we might work with.

We're keen to build on this and create audio recordings of our own, preserving people's stories and histories on an online archive. With this in mind, I met Tim Robins who runs Azook based in Pool (near Redruth), supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Azook archives video, audio and picture records to create an online resource called 'Cornish Memory Archives' The project lasts for three years and is half way through. 

Each item is documented online by a team of volunteers and then added to a map of the county.

This makes it easy to explore the unique traditions and heritage of every village. It is also possible, and I'd like to look at this in more depth, to see how and when ideas spread from area to area. As more and more material is put online, it will be fascinating to see how news of the First World War spread from region to region.

Tim showed me some of the remarkable material they are working with. Perhaps the most striking thing for me was to see old photographs of the airbase at Mullion during WW1 with air ships floating along the Cornish coastline.

Azook loans out equipment and gives free training. I'm really excited about working with them on Heart of Conflict