Phyllis Yglesias was an artist and bird-carer based in Mousehole, Cornwall.
The sister of Dorothy Yglesias, they were the daughters of the Catalan painter Vincent Philip Yglesias (1846-1911), a London-based artist associated for 13 years with the artists’ colony at Walberswick, Suffolk.
After their father’s death, the two sisters, their brother and their mother Edith, also an artist, moved to Cornwall from north London. They first arrived to Cornwall in 1912 and settled at Lamorna. At this time, Phyllis (known as Pog) was a London art student concentrating on sculpture. Close friends and exhibitors with family of Lamorna Birch, together they ran a small gift shop at the foot of the Flagstaff Cottage driveway, with the Birches selling toys and small paintings.
In 1928 the sisters began their bird hospital and sanctuary in Mousehole, which Dorothy described in her book The Cry of the Bird. The Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital remains in operation today.
Pog created simple designs in stained wood. When Bernard Walke, parish priest of St Hilary asked for a contribution of her work toward the Lady Chapel, Pog created a life-size crucifix which still hangs on the north wall of the church. Her special friendship with the Knights and the Birches is explored in Lamorna Kerr’s reminiscences with Melissa Hardie In Time and Place (1989) of artistic life in Lamorna. Lamorna Birch’s headstone at Paul Churchyard was carved by Pog.
