Kettle's Yard

Influential artist Alfred Wallis is the Artist in Focus next month at Kettle’s Yard.

“I do most what used To Be what we shall never see no more

Alfred Wallis

The exhibition runs from 7 April to 8 July and is a unique opportunity for the public to see 40 of Wallis’ colourful work.  Alfred Wallis forms a major part of the Kettle's Yard collection. Kettle’s Yard possesses 98 works in their collection, 39 of which are normally on display in the house.

Living in St. Ives, Cornwall and with no art training, Wallis took up painting late in life “for company” after the death of his wife. In the 1870’s he had been a “mariner, merchant service” crossing the Atlantic and later working smaller fishing boats closer to shore. Using household and ship oil paint in a limited supply of colours on found bits of card, Wallis made works that are, as he said himself, more experiences and events than paintings.

“I do most what used To Be what we shall never see no more”, he wrote to Jim Ede, the creator of Kettle’s Yard, and one of his most ardent collectors.

Promoted by the artist Ben Nicholson and others, Wallis’ paintings are often valued for their influence on the development of British art at a key moment, but they have a powerful expressive reality to them that is both deeply personal and enduring.

When the artist Peter Lanyon asked him about a detail in one of his paintings, Wallis replied revealingly: “Mind your own business”.

What shines out is Wallis’ exceptional natural talent. His paintings are of what he knew, remembered and imagined. They continue to speak movingly about how we relate to the world about us.

This display is a new selection of about forty paintings of what Wallis knew best: from three masted brigantines and sailing boats to lug boats and motor vessels, often battling with an unpredictable sea that held sway over life and death.

Some paintings have been moved from the part of the Kettle’s Yard House currently closed due to building work, others are usually in store and rarely seen.


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