Alfred Wallis

Alfred Wallis (8 August 1855 – 29 August 1942) was a British artist and marine stores dealer. He began painting at the age of 70, in 1925, using household paint on scraps of cardboard. Having lived by the sea all his life, and no artistic training, he painted port landscapes and shipping scenes in a naïve style. He achieved little commercial success, although his work was championed by progressive artists such as Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood.

Life and work

Wallis's father, Charles Wallis, was from Penzance in Cornwall, and his mother, Jane Ellis, was from the Isles of Scilly. In August 1876 Wallis sailed to a remote part of Labrador called Batteau Harbour, where he spent several months and acted as ship's cook.

His paintings are an example of naïve art; perspective is ignored and an object's scale is often based on its relative importance in the scene, giving many of his paintings a resemblance to early maps. Wallis painted seascapes from memory, in large part because the world of sail and steamships he knew was being replaced by vessels with diesel engines. As he put it, his subjects were "what use To Bee out of my own memery what we may never see again..."

Wallis had little money and used materials that were readily available, mostly painting on cardboard torn from packing boxes and using a limited palette of paint. However, close examination of the different types of cardboard he used, and the specific brand of Peacock & Buchan ships paint he insisted on (bought from the Burrells' hardware shop in the Digey), suggests that these were conscious artistic choices. 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 termed Wallis's art "something that has grown out of the Cornish seas and earth and which will endure".

Through Nicholson and Wood, Wallis's work was introduced to Jim Ede who promoted his work in London. Despite the admiration of some of the foremost artists, critics and collectors in the British Modern Art scene throughout the 1930s – as well as international acclaim – Wallis's paintings were only ever bought for a few shillings.