Alfred Wallis

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For the British biologist, see Alfred Russel Wallace.

The Hold House Port Mear Square Island Port Mear Beach, circa 1932, Tate Gallery.

Alfred Wallis (18 August 1855 – 29 August 1942) was an English fisherman and artist.

Wallis was born in Devonport, Devon. Details of Wallis' early life are uncertain, but he settled in St. Ives, Cornwall, in 1890. In 1912, he retired from a lifetime working as a deep-sea fisherman. Following his wife's death in 1922, Wallis took up painting, to, as he later told Jim Ede, "keep himself company".

His paintings are an excellent example of naïve art; perspective is ignored and an object's scale is often based on its relative importance in the scene. This gives many of his paintings a map-like quality. Wallis painted his seascapes from memory, in large part because the world of sail he knew was being replaced by steamships. Having no money, Wallis improvised with materials, mostly painting on cardboard ripped from packing boxes.

In many ways, Wallis' timing was excellent. In 1928, a few years after he had started painting, Ben Nicholson and Kit Wood came to St. Ives and established an artist colony. They were delighted to find Wallis and celebrated his direct approach to image-making. Wallis was propelled into a circle of the some of most progressive artists working in Britain in the 1930s. The influence, however, was all one way; Wallis continued to paint as he always had.

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 Workhouse in Penzance. He is buried in Barnoon cemetery, overlooking St. Ives' Porthmeor beach and the Tate St Ives gallery. An elaborate gravestone, depicting a tiny mariner at the foot of a huge lighthouse – a popular motif in Wallis' paintings – was made from tiles by the potter Bernard Leach and now covers Wallis' tomb.

Examples of Wallis' paintings can be seen at Kettle's Yard (Jim Ede's home) and at the Tate St Ives.