Alfred Wallis

Acquired directly from the Artist by Ben Nicholson, by whom gifted to Angela Verren
Private Collection
Offer Waterman & Co., London, where acquired by the present owner, 16th June 2004

Not viewed out of the frame. There are small holes in each of the four corners where the sheet has been affixed to the mount with pins. The edges of the sheet appear uneven and there appears to be an old tear at the lower right corner, most likely inkeeping with the artist's working method. There are several creases to the board, the most prominent of which are several creases which run horizontally across the sheet around the centre of the composition. There is some creasing and wear to the edges of the sheet. There are areas of cracking to the paint, most apparent along the lower horizontal edge in line with the creasing to the card, with some resulting losses. There is some surface dirt and studio detritus across the card. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in good condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of fluorescence or retouching. The work is float mounted and presented in a simple wooden frame, held under glass. Please telephone the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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We are grateful to Jovan Nicholson for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.

The story of Alfred Wallis is one inextricably linked with the avant-garde circle of artists that colonised the most south westerly tip of Britain in the early part of the twentieth century. At the forefront stood Ben Nicholson, whose discovery of the aged fisherman has ascended into the leagues of art historical legend. Whilst walking one day with Christopher Wood he stumbled across Wallis’ small fisherman’s cottage and was struck at once with the directness of these ‘naïve’ paintings. A sailor and later a rag-and-bone merchant, Wallis had retired by the time of the start of the First World War, and following the death of his wife, turned to painting for solace. He painted what he knew: life on the sea or by the coast, famous shipwrecks and large fantastical fish that leapt from the thickly impastoed waves. He made do with the materials he could find to hand, often painting with ship's paint on scraps of board or cardboard, doors or tables, even using jam jars.

It was this visual immediacy that so attracted Nicholson, his wife Winifred and their friend Wood, all of whom set about to expose his creative genius to the world. As Jovan Nicholson, in the recent exhibition Art and Life: Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, William Staite Murray 1920-31, has demonstrated, Wallis was not only a source of fascination to these London-based artists that descended on St Ives in the early 1920s, but also a source of inspiration. Indeed when viewed together, one is able to appreciate the degree to which this un-trained artist inspired Ben’s work, seen in the likes of c.1930 (Cornish port) (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge). Adapting Wallis’ skewed perspective, he brings in reference to the coastal life and landscape beyond. Wallis’ interest in ‘landscape painting’ formed a less-prominent feature within his oeuvre, yet despite the lesser frequency their peculiar charm is equally intriguing. In his depiction of the tall, towering trees of the present work, Wallis made full use of his much favoured green, using it to capture the landscape that Winifred had identified as ‘a sleeping beauty’s countryside of southern foliage, sheltered creeks and wide expanse of placid water’ (‘Blue was His Colour,' Unknown Colour, Paintings, Letters, Writings by Winifred Nicholson, Faber and Faber, London, 1987, pp.83-98, p.91).

Wallis continued to paint with an almost fervent excitement, and produced a very similar composition to the present work, purchased by H.S. Ede, whose collection at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, is the most impressive of Wallis’ work on public display. Both paintings depict the tall, haunting trees, a ghostly white house and the familiar cross-bar gate, yet the present work extends beyond to depict the rolling landscape, divided by the patchwork of Cornish stone walls. It is probable that Nicholson acquired the present work at much the same time as Ede did his, adding to his already considerable collection of works by Wallis. On 28^th July he wrote 'Dear Mr Wallis, I have kept 12 of the paintings … some of this lot are very beautiful & we like them very much indeed…' (Ben Nicholson, quoted in Jovan Nicholson, Art and Life 1920-31, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2013, p.122) signing off the letter with the offer of sending more paints. This generosity was well-matched by Wallis who gave a model boat that he had built to Ben and Winifred’s son Jake in 1928.

The present work is important in that it not only displays the influence that Wallis’ paintings had over the British art scene in the early part of the century, but also because it highlights the close relationships that existed between these artists. They bought each other’s works to support them when times were hard, traded them when times were not, and gifted them as signs of the warmth and esteem with which they regarded each other. In 1970 Nicholson met the painter Angela Verren, striking up a close friendship, and inscribing the reverse of the present work ‘Lent to Angela and to become her property when I pop – BN’. More so than any other part of Britain in the early twentieth century, St Ives was an artistic community, and at the heart of this community stood Wallis.