Alfred Wallis

St. Ives

Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) was a retired Cornish sailor who took up painting late in life. Several of his marine pictures are preserved at the Tate. With no money and no audience Wallis used scraps of wood or cardboard, covering them with the coarse paint intended for use on ships rather than commercial pigments meant for artists.

According to curators, "Wallis regarded his paintings as expressions of his experiences. He was unaware of linear perspective but arranged the objects depicted in terms of relative importance, determining their sizes accordingly. Thus the principal subject of a painting would be the largest object depicted, regardless of where it stood in relation to others."

St. Ives

Port Mear Beach 

Mounts Bay

Schooner Under Moonlight 

String of Boats

The Blue Ship

Voyage to Labrador

Wreck of the Alba

Eddystone Lighthouse