Alfred Wallis
Encyclopedia
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
fisherman
Fisherman
A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers. The term can also be applied to recreational fishermen and may be used to describe both men...
and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
.
Wallis's parents, Charles and Jane Wallis were from Penzance
Penzance
Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
in Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
and moved to Devonport, Devon
Devonport, Devon
Devonport, formerly named Plymouth Dock or just Dock, is a district of Plymouth in the English county of Devon, although it was, at one time, the more important settlement. It became a county borough in 1889...
to find work in 1850 where Alfred and his brother Charles were born. Shortly after this the children's mother died and this prompted the family to move back to Penzance. On leaving school Alfred became an apprentice basket maker before becoming a mariner in the merchant service by the early 1870s. This work involved sailing schooners across the North Atlantic between Penzance and Newfoundland.
Alfred married Susan Ward at St. Mary's church in Penzance in 1876, when he was 20 and his wife was 41 and became stepfather to her five children. He continued his life as a deep-sea fisherman on the Newfoundland run in the early days of his marriage allowing him to earn a good wage until the death of his two infant children when Alfred switched to local fishing and labouring in Penzance.
The family moved to St. Ives, Cornwall, in 1890 where he established himself as a marine stores dealer, buying scrap iron, sails, rope and other items. In 1912, his business, "Wallis, Alfred, Marine Stores Dealer" closed for business and Alfred kept himself busy with odd jobs and worked for a local antiques dealer Mr Armour which provided some insight into the world of objets d'art.
Following his wife's bitter death in 1922, Wallis took up painting, as he later told Jim Ede
Jim Ede
Harold Stanley Ede also known as Jim' Ede, was an English collector of art and friend to artists.Ede studied painting at Newlyn Art School between 1912 and 1914 when he was called up in World War I...
, "for company".
His paintings are an excellent example of naïve art
Naïve art
Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...
; perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
is ignored and an object's scale
Scale (spatial)
Spatial scale provides a "shorthand" form for discussing relative lengths, areas, distances and sizes. A microclimate, for instance, is one which might occur in a mountain valley or near a lakeshore, whereas a megatrend is one which involves the whole planet....
is often based on its relative importance in the scene. This gives many of his paintings a map-like quality. Wallis painted his seascape
Seascape
A seascape is a photograph, painting, or other work of art which depicts the sea, in other words an example of marine art. By a backwards development, the word has also come to mean the view of the sea itself, and be applied in planning contexts to geographical locations possessing a good view of...
s from memory, in large part because the world of sail
Sailing
Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...
he knew was being replaced by steamships. As he himself put it, his subjects were "what use To Bee out of my memery what we may never see again..." Having little money, Wallis improvised with materials, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes using a limited palette of paint bought from ships' chandlers.
In many ways, Wallis' timing was excellent. In 1928, a few years after he had started painting, Ben Nicholson
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...
and Kit Wood
Christopher Wood (English painter)
John Christopher Wood , often called Kit Wood, was an English painter born in Knowsley, near Liverpool.-Biography:-Early life:Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley to Doctor Lucius and Clare Wood...
came to St. Ives and established an artist colony. They were delighted to find Wallis and celebrated his direct approach to image-making.Nicholson commented later 'to Wallis, his paintings were never paintings but actual events'. Wallis was propelled into a circle of some of the most progressive artists working in Britain in the 1930s. The influence, however, was all one way; Wallis continued to paint as he always had. Nicholson later said of Wallis's art 'something that has grown out of the Cornish seas and earth and which will endure'.
Through Nicholson and Wood, Wallis was introduced to Jim Ede who promoted his work in London. Despite this attention, Wallis sold few of his paintings and continued to live in poverty until he died in the Madron
Madron
Madron is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a large rural parish on the Penwith peninsula north of Penzance.Madron village is situated approximately two miles northwest of Penzance town centre....
Workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
in Penzance
Penzance
Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
. He is buried in Barnoon cemetery, overlooking St. Ives' Porthmeor beach and the Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists, including work of the St Ives School. The three storey building, designed by architects Evans and Shalev, lies on the site of an old gas works, overlooking Porthmeor Beach. It was opened in...
gallery. An elaborate gravestone, depicting a tiny mariner at the foot of a huge lighthouse – a popular motif
Motif (art)
In art, a motif is an element of a pattern, an image or part of one, or a theme. A motif may be repeated in a design or composition, often many times, or may just occur once in a work. A motif may be an element in the iconography of a particular subject or type of subject that is seen in other...
in Wallis' paintings – was made from tiles by the potter
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
Bernard Leach
Bernard Leach
Bernard Howell Leach, CBE, CH , was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery"-Biography:...
and now covers Wallis' tomb.
Examples of Wallis' paintings can be seen at Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...
(Jim Ede's home) and at the Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives
Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists, including work of the St Ives School. The three storey building, designed by architects Evans and Shalev, lies on the site of an old gas works, overlooking Porthmeor Beach. It was opened in...
.
External links
- Images from the Tate gallery collection.
- The Life & Work of Alfred Wallis - St Ives Artist & Mariner
- Alfred Wallis Cottage - The Home of the Artist
- artcornwall.org on-line journal for art and artists in Cornwall
- Wallis Gallery a gallery of works by Alfred Wallis, including biography and analysis of Wallis paintings