Two first-year fine art students from University College Falmouth are to benefit from a new scholarship that commemorates the life and artistic legacy of the late Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004) was a founder member of the Penwith Society of Artists, a leading light in St Ives since the 1940s along with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, and one of the foremost abstract artists in the country, whose paintings can be found in public collections throughout the UK including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the British Museum, the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She was passionate in her support for emerging artists and this Scholarship is testament to that.

Originally intended as a scholarship for one student, such was the quality of the applicants this year that the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Scholarship was awarded to two students - Laura Culham and Leila Watts.