Dennis ENDEAN IVALL (1921-2006) 'The Miner' and 'Old Quay & Cave, St Agnes Each watercolour and ink, signed, 25.5cm x 35.5cm; together with a 19th century miniature watercolour of a girl and a dog by a different hand, 10cm x 7cm.
Dennis Endean Ivall was born in Essex in 1921, the youngest of four children. His father was then an accountant with ICI and his mother was a member of the Endean family of St. Agnes, so he visited Cornwall for holidays from an early age. He attended the Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Chingford, and then joined ICI. In the Second World War he enlisted in the Ordnance Corps, seeing active service in the retreat from Burma, and later in Ceylon and the Cocos Islands, where he reached the rank of Warrant Officer, First Class.
After the war he trained as an artist and art teacher. Working at first as a freelance artist, he later became an art teacher in Barnstaple, North Devon – the nearest to Cornwall that he could get at the time.
In 1973, Dennis took early retirement and moved to Cornwall, living at first at Ponsanooth and then for thirty years at Perranwell. He worked as a designer, a record agent and principally as a heraldic artist and designer, only retiring from this work when suffering from illness in the last three years of his life.
Heraldic art was his great passion, and he carried out the design and painting of coats of arms for many clients across the world. He was the author of the book Cornish Heraldry and Symbolism and, among the work he carried out in Cornwall, was the painting of the organ panels at Cuby church, the repainting of the coat of arms at St.Dennis after the fire and the design and painting of a banner for St.Agnes and, of course, the banner of St. Piran in this church.
Heraldry and his military service gave rise to an interest in army insignia and badges and, with Professor Charles Thomas, he was the author and illustrator of Military Insignia of Cornwall. He was a founder member of the Cornwall Militaria Group, and a long serving member of the Perranarworthal branch of the British Legion.
His enthusiasm for heraldry led Dennis to join the Order of St.Lazarus, an international charitable order founded in the Holy Land. He was a member of the Commandery of Avalon in the West Country, and became Judge of Arms of the Commandery, of the Bailiwick of England and then of the whole order worldwide, attaining the rank of Knight Grand Cross.
Although he was such a talented artist, with a worldwide clientele, he was always ready to lend his talents to local activities, whether painting scenery for Carnon Downs Drama Group, drawing posters for the Women’s Institute or touching up the lettering on the war memorial.