Ella Naper

Biography

Ella (1886-1972)
Charles (1882-1968)
Ella learned handicrafts at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts under Frederick Partridge, a disciple of the great arts and crafts practitioner C R Ashbee, and later joined his jewellery workshop at Branscombe in south Devon. There, she developed and refined her feel for Art Nouveau.
Ella met and married architect and painter, Charles Naper. They moved to Lamorna in 1912, where Charles built a house, Trewoofe. They soon became part of the Samuel J (Lamorna) Birch circle, making lifelong friendships with, in particular, Laura and Harold Knight and Harold and Gertrude Harvey.
The Napers appeared in several notable paintings. Laura Knight's celebrated Spring shows Ella and Charles setting out for a day's fishing, and in Self and Nude Ella modelled as the nude. Ella was also one of the three women in Harold Harvey's painting, The Critics.
In the early 1920s Ella set up the Lamorna Pottery with Kate Westrup, producing mainly commercial ware, but also s