Denis Adeane Mitchell (30 June 1912 – 23 March 1993) was an English abstract sculptor who worked mainly in bronze and wood.
A prominent member of the St Ives group of artists, he worked as an assistant to Barbara Hepworth for many years.
Went to St Ives with Endell Mitchell to renovate aunt's cottages and set up a market garden at Balnoon, Halsetown.
Endell marries and moves to Castle Inn, St Ives.
Denis and Jane Mitchell marry at Towednack Parish Church.
Met Bernard Leach and Adrian Stokes through the Home Guard.
Exhibits work at Downings bookshop in Fore Street and the Castle Inn.
Visited exhibition of pre-Columbian and Mexican art at Tate Gallery.
Foreign Office commission Zelah No I (bronze), for University of the Andes, Colombia.
Zelah No 2 exhibit of the Month, National Art Gallery of New Zealand.
Lecture tour of Colombia including a month teaching at the University of the Andes at Bogota.
Dies 23 March Denis Mitchell was born in 1912 in Wealdstone, Middlesex.
The family moved to South Wales when he was a young child and it was while growing up there that he developed an interest in art.
He moved to Cornwall in 1930 and initially earned a living working with his brother to renovate cottages.
He married in 1939 and during the Second World War worked as a miner at Geevor.
This experience of hewing rock fuelled an interest in sculpture and at the end of the war, Bernard Leach suggest his name to Barbara Hepworth as a studio assistant.
An initial day of work led to a 10 year long collaboration in which he was principal assistant and supervised the creation of many of Hepworth's sculptures.
In 1955, Mitchell was elected chairman of the Penwith Society of abstract artists and worked out of his own studio in Fore Street, St Ives.
He left Hepworth's service in 1959 and became known in the 1960s for his polished bronzes, achieving international recognition with exhibitions in New York and London.
In 1967 he gave up teaching to commit to full time sculpture and moved to Newlyn to share the large studio of his friend and fellow artist John Wells.
Leeds University, The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery Leicestershire Education Committee.
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester Royal Academy of Music, London.
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro St Helen's School, Northwood, London.