An early Alfred Wallis

  Although we have sold a number of Alfred Wallis paintings over the years; those purchased by Jim Ede of Kettles Yard, or others with excellent provenances, none before has captured our imagination so much as this work, drawing together these three hugely significant St Ives figures; Alfred Wallis, Sven Berlin and Bernard Leach. 

 The provenance of this work is so perfect and so exciting, it feels like it weaves together several remarkable strands in the story of modernist art in mid 20th century St Ives. 

 It cannot be overstated just how important the discovery of Alfred Wallis and his paintings was to modern British art, the reverberations of which have continued to ripple down the decades to the present day. To artists such as Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood, looking for a newer, free-er way of seeing and working, his paintings were fascinating and a source of new inspiration to be harvested. But to the young Sven Berlin in 1941, just setting out on the path of ‘becoming’ (an artist) his first encounter with Wallis’s paintings sent shock waves through him. He felt the power of them on a visceral level.  

Wallis had been born in 1855 and grew up in Devonport. His early childhood was mired in family deaths and dire poverty. He moved to Penzance in 1870 at fifteen and spent his late teens and early twenties as a mariner, working the Mounts Bay luggers fishing out of Penzance and also in the trans-Atlantic cod trade, sailing as far as Newfoundland and Labrador. Life aboard ship was tough and extremely dangerous, but also exciting and unforgettable. Wallis’s nautical experiences gained at such an impressionable age were to be a lifelong source of stories and conversations, and in later life when he began to paint, his artistic inspiration.  

Wallis had married Susan Agland in 1876 just before his trans-Atlantic departure, and in 1882 they moved to St Ives where they ran a marine stores business together for the next thirty years. Wallis and his wife were happy and hardworking, although poor, they were reasonably comfortable. They were devout Christians and active members of the Salvation Army. When Susan, his wife of nearly 50 years, died in 1922, the industrious Wallis took on odd jobs for funds and to keep himself occupied, but when he turned 70 in 1925, he received his Old Age Pension and no longer needed to work.  He said to his friend Richard Edwards, the watchmaker in Fore Street “I dono how to pass away time. I think I'll do a bit’a paintin - think I'll draw a bit.” And he went straight to the shop next door to purchase brushes and paint.  

Salvation Army doctrine prescribed constant occupation and so Wallis took up painting with gusto, working all day long at the table in his cottage and filling his walls and all the available surfaces with his pictures. Alfred Wallis’s paintings were autobiographical; drawing upon the rich maritime experiences of his youth, he recreated the ships he’d seen and sailed on, the places he’d visited, and the sights and scenes that had stayed with him into old age.  

Wallis happily distributed his pictures amongst friends and family and, with encouragement, placed them in his friend’s shop window. He also pinned them to his front door on the annual artists’ "Show Day". Due to the close proximity of the Porthmeor Studios, it is likely that many of the traditional St Ives artists of the day were well aware of Alfred Wallis and his paintings, but his ‘discovery’ is widely attributed to Christopher Wood and Ben Nicholson in 1928, while they were visiting St Ives on holiday. The two young modernist artists were entranced by Alfred’s work, and Nicholson wasted no time in sharing his ‘discovery’ with his patrons and artistic friends.  

During the following years, Wallis and Nicholson corresponded regularly, with Wallis sending Nicholson packages of paintings to buy in bulk, on a low financial footing of Nicholson’s devising. He championed Wallis’s work and bought many paintings, in the role of an agent of sorts, a role he shared with his friend Jim Ede, whose collection of Wallis’s work in Kettles Yard has been so important in promoting Wallis’s universal fame.  

Wider recognition of Wallis’s work grew during the 1930s, and he was regularly visited by admirers who bought his work; however, his health was deteriorating. He was knocked down by a car in the street in early 1937 which exacerbated his decline. He was 81 years old.  

Wallis had an extended family who helped him throughout his life but after his accident he became increasingly irascible, paranoid and less able to take care of himself or manage his finances; he sometimes got into debt. Despite his increasing artistic notoriety throughout the 1930s, the small sums he was paid for his pictures never increased and so did not alleviate his dire poverty and living conditions. His once well-kept cottage became filthy and flea ridden and in June 1941, while Wallis was suffering from a severe bout of bronchitis, the authorities admitted him to the infirmary at Madron Workhouse, where he remained until his death in August the following year. He was 87. 

The flamboyant, ex-adagio dancer Sven Berlin arrived in Cornwall with his dance partner and wife, Helga, in the mid-1930s in order to study the arts under Frank Turk in Camborne. With no independent financial support, they often experienced periods of extreme poverty. On the outbreak of war in 1939, Sven registered as a Conscientious Objector. He was assigned various jobs, including agricultural labour. This was a period of intense deprivation for the couple whilst Sven strived to become an artist. They were often desperately broke and frequently went without food. This period taught Berlin a deep love and respect for the Cornish landscape and the Cornish people, who accepted him as they worked alongside each other, toiling long hours in the fields in all weathers.  

Berlin first saw Alfred Wallis’s paintings in April 1941 whilst being interviewed for a job working in Adrian Stokes's market garden at Little Parc Owles in Carbis Bay. Stokes, whose market garden exempted him from military service, was a respected, independently wealthy author and art critic, and had been introduced to Wallis by Nicholson some years earlier. He bought many of his works and was yet another key figure from the Modern Art World who purchased and promoted Alfred’s paintings during the 1930s. Berlin was bowled over on seeing this first painting and soon after resolved to visit Wallis at his cottage. When he learned from Stokes that Wallis had just the previous day been taken to the workhouse, he was appalled. Madron Workhouse was some miles inland, it was difficult to reach without a car, Berlin couldn’t visit as due to his own impoverished circumstances, he was living in a cottage on the moors near Zennor lent to him by Robin Nance. In this way, Wallis was cut off from loving friends and family and Berlin felt that “Long before this date his (Alfred’s) security from destitution should have been assured.”  

Sadly, Berlin never got to meet his hero, but his deep emotional response to Wallis’s work inspired him to study and learn everything he could about this curious Cornish artist and his life. The more he learnt, the more connected to him he felt. He saw himself as akin to Wallis, he understood his poverty, had himself had the threat of the workhouse hang over his family, he saw the rawness and honesty of Alfred’s paintings. 

It became Berlin’s mission to record the details of Wallis’s life and art for posterity, one that became central to his own life for the next few years. Renouncing his pacifist stance, Berlin joined the war in 1942, taking his Alfred Wallis notes and manuscript with him throughout Europe and the D-Day landings. As a Forward Observer, he witnessed scenes which deeply traumatised him and was hospitalised. However, his drive to write the book remained strong. A fellow patient in hospital remembers that at lights-out Berlin would take a blanket to the bathroom and lie in the bath so he could continue to work on his manuscript. The end result of Berlin’s passion was ‘Alfred Wallis Primitive’ the first full length monograph on this beloved St Ives artist, which was finally published in 1949. 

Berlin’s active enthusiasm for Wallis infuriated Ben Nicholson who felt a strong sense of ownership towards the old man. Sven’s writing on Wallis was critical of Nicholson who Sven felt had exploited him. It ignited an intense rivalry between two camps in St Ives which Berlin claimed negatively impacted his career for a long time. 

Pouring oil on troubled waters was Bernard Leach, the revered potter and a father-figure amongst the modernists of St Ives. Leach had set up his pottery in St Ives in 1920. He was 55 years old when Alfred Wallis died in 1942. 

Adrian Stokes had been made Wallis’ executor by the authorities, and he enlisted Sven to help with funeral arrangements and to organise a subscription to pay for Wallis’s gravestone. Whilst on leave in 1944, Berlin asked Barbara Hepworth to carve his headstone, but she refused.  Berlin had aspirations to carve something heroic and imposing himself, but at that time hadn’t ever worked on a large scale and was also still a soldier. It was Bernard Leach who stepped in and offered to make the impressive and moving set of tiles that grace Wallis’s grave in Barnoon cemetery to this day. 

Berlin first met Leach via his son David, whilst he was working for Stokes. They soon became close. Berlin had huge respect for Leach, who was a mentor and a father figure to him. When Berlin made the life changing decision to join the war, Bernard provided not only practical but emotional support. 

“it was during this crucial time my friendship with Bernard was vital to my sanity, for he knew better than anyone else how deeply my convictions went and that being taken over by the objective psyche was no easy matter.” 

Bernard helped house Sven’s young family in a cottage near the pottery and kept a watchful eye on them during the war. He also helped Sven by storing important items for him while he was away fighting. Notably, Alfred Wallis’s table from his cottage.  

As appointed executor, when Wallis died Adrian Stokes had been sent all his drawings and other effects by the workhouse. Importantly, Stokes also removed the bulk of Wallis’s remaining paintings from his dirty, flea infested cottage, where they had lain since Wallis left the previous year. We are told that Ben Nicholson had first pickings of what must have been a trove of riches. Stokes and his wife Margaret Mellis kept a number, and Stokes allowed Berlin to choose some paintings and drawings for himself. Berlin also requested Alfred’s table. It was where the artist had sat and worked and Wallis had covered its surface with a magnificent schooner in full sail.  

“I was able to store things at the pottery, especially the table that Alfred Wallis had painted, which was given to me by Adrian Stokes acting as executor for the authorities, and which I wished to preserve and present to the Tate when the war was over. But when I came back in 1945, on army pay of 10 shillings a week I was forced to accept an offer from Eardley Knollys through Stokes to sell. He came to the pottery with the painter Edward le Bas, and I remember how little I was able to laugh when I watched them saw off the legs of the table, throwing them aside with the joke that they must remember to present those to the Tate, before fitting the table top with its great lighthouse and ship into the boot of their car and driving away. 

I don't know what happened to it after that, but it certainly would not have been saved had not Bernard allowed it to be in his house during those difficult years.” 

On the reverse of this marvellous work by Wallis ‘Mizzen Top Sail Luggers’ is a pencil inscription in Leach’s hand which reads: 

‘Rather early painting by Alfred Wallis  

Given by Sven Berlin, 28th Nov 1942’ 

This is almost exactly three months to the day after Wallis had died and almost certainly must have been presented just before Berlin headed off to fight. Given all that we know about Berlin and his deep respect for Leach, we can be fairly certain that this painting was a token of gratitude and esteem for his mentor and father figure, gifted in the knowledge that he may never return. The fact that Leach inscribed the exact date indicates that this must have been on his mind too.  

Sven wrote of Bernard: 

“He told me once that he always envied me for being able to fight alongside the frontline soldier, and for this honesty and for so much more I loved him.” 

Berlin did return, although he suffered greatly from his war-time experiences. His friendship with Leach continued and is well documented in Berlin’s autobiography ‘The Coat of Many Colours’.  

Leach left this lovely painting by Wallis to his daughter Eleanor. Eleanor married the multi-talented Dicon Nance, carpenter, Leach assistant and Foreman to Barbara Hepworth. Dicon, with his brother Robin, had also helped Sven in his youth, and the painting is now being sold by Dicon’s son, a fellow mariner like Wallis. And so we come full circle in the remarkable history of this work and the stories of those whose hands it has passed through. We shall leave the last words to Sven Berlin who ties them all together: 

‘“After a time my work as gardener with Adrian Stokes where I met so many people now part of history, came to an end and I was in for a very rough time. I went to live in that remote cottage on the Zennor moors lent to me by Robin and Dicon Nance, where I existed with my family in great poverty. I used to go researching for my Wallis book among the Cornish people and working on the land as well as the pottery. The link with Alfred Wallis was another link with Bernard. I used to discuss my work with him and he read the first manuscript of my book. He was helpful. Although I took note of what he said that evening, being obstinately a lone voyager I stayed with my vision. I was nonetheless grateful for his care about what I was doing as I was later moved by the lighthouse in glazed tiles he was to make for Wallis’s memorial.”