Houses at St Ives, Cornwall circa 1928-42
© The estate of Alfred Wallis
View in Tate Collection
There is a long European tradition of artists looking outside the academic art world for means of expression that are simpler and more vigorous, fresher and less calculated, than those allowed for by the reigning artistic establishment of the day. This search has often led artists to seek inspiration in the work of earlier historical periods and also in the products of so-called 'primitive' cultures; the interest in African art in early twentieth-century Paris is a good example.
In England a quest for a simpler or more 'real' way of life found expression in the Victorian period in the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. It was given new urgency in the decades following the First World War when Europe seemed to have lurched out of its old political and social certainties. Bernard Leach's pottery may be seen as the product of a search for simplicity and quality in the production of pots. In English artistic circles during this period (particularly the decade 1929-39) the engagement with 'primitivism' manifested itself in the high degree of interest excited by the work of the St Ives artist Alfred Wallis.
Wallis, who came late to painting and had no formal training, was by all accounts a strange and isolated figure in the day-to-day life of his home town. After Nicholson and Wood's 1928 visit he gradually acquired iconic status as Britain's premier artistic 'primitive'; Nicholson spoke for many when he said of Wallis's work: 'One finds the influences one is looking for and I was certainly looking for that one.'
How Wallis felt about his fame, which brought him attention but few material rewards, can only be guessed. Indeed, the whole question of 'primitivism' in modern art has unavoidable socio-political overtones. In retrospect, there are parallels between Wallis's situation and that of the 'primitive' artists of, for example, the European colonies in Africa. Where the art-world cachet of such work did nothing to ameliorate the oppression and exploitation endemic in their daily lives, it is not clear whether Wallis's evident enjoyment of the audience for his art compensated for lack of material fulfilment.