‘He didn’t know how much we all learnt from him. He had a magical sense of reality, colour, and tone, which he did so simply and so truthfully, and which inspired us all.’

– Barbara Hepworth

Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) spent most of his lifetime in Cornwall, first working as a fisherman, and then as a rag-and-bone man and marine storekeeper. Following the death of his beloved wife, Susan, he turned to art, aged 70. Painting on discarded cardboard, his radical simplification of form, flattened perspective and limited palette offered a unique visual language based on memory rather than direct observation. This free approach showed British artists they could be authentic and modern without emulating Paris’s avant-garde, deeply shaping British abstraction.

Curator James Scott shows how the fisherman-turned-painter profoundly influenced Modern British art by pairing Wallis’s bold, untrained marine paintings with works by iconic artists who admired and collected him, including Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood and Barbara Hepworth.

Pallant will simultaneously host Barbara Hepworth and Greece, exploring how the sites, colours and light of Greece inspired a renewal in Hepworth’s practice, and a sculpture commission by Ro Robertson. All three featured artists share a profound, historic connection to the landscapes of St Ives, Cornwall. Be inspired at pallant.org.uk