WALLIS, ALFRED: James Fox TV - Tim Marlow & Peter Blake TV - BBC online - Ben Nicholson -
11,608. The cardboard paintings of Cornish boats by Alfred Wallis, graceful and tasteful abstractions from Ben Nicholson, and the quirky paintings of harbours by Christopher Wood. (Artists: Wood & Artists: Wallis & Artists: Nicholson) Dr James Fox, The Art of Cornwall
11,687. Schooner Approaching Harbour c.1930: It’s the Holy Grail really, isn’t it ... Folk Art: this is the artist they’ll know about. He lived in St Ives in Cornwall ... (Art & Artists: Wallis) Tim Marlow Meets Sir Peter Blake
11,688. There’s this sense of being rooted in a place, and drawing from that place. (Art & Artists: Wallis) ibid.
11,689. b Devonport, 8 Aug 1855; d Madron, nr Penzance, Cornwall, 29 Aug 1942). British naive painter of sailing ships and landscapes. He went to sea as a cabin boy and cook at the age of 9, and from about 1880 worked as a fisherman in Cornwall. In 1890 he opened a rag-and-bone store in St Ives and after retiring from this did odd jobs, including selling ice cream. BBC online
11,690. On one of the last occasions on which I saw him, about a month before he died, as soon as he caught sight of me he got up and came straight towards me saying: ‘I’ve been wanting to see you. I want black and white and green. Enamel. In tins. 6d. each.’ As he had recently been using blue I said: ‘What about blue?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I want Black and White and Green.’ Ben Nicholson