Alfred Wallis, British 1855-1942- Sailing in Stormy Seas; pencil and...

Alfred Wallis, British 1855-1942- Sailing in Stormy Seas; pencil and oil on card, 8x13.5cm (image) (ARR) Provenance: Sotheby's Olympia 24 November 2004 lot 251, where it was purchased by the present owner. With thanks to Robert Jones author of Alfred Wallis Artist and Mariner' (3rd edition 2018) for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. Note: In spring 1876 a Westcountry schooner was moored alongside the quay in Penzance Harbour. The ship had sailed from Cardiff with a cargo of coal and was being refitted and taking on crew for the next voyage. On 25th April an ordinary seaman joined the crew of the sailing ship, signing the crew agreement. The ship was Pride of the West and the seaman was Alfred Wallis aged 19. Three weeks previously Alfred Wallis had married Susan Ward, a widow and mother of a large family, in St Mary’s Church Penzance. She was expecting Wallis’s child. On 26th April Pride of the West sailed for Cadiz to load cargo before crossing the Atlantic to St John’s, Newfoundland to collect a cargo of dry salt cod. In St John’s Wallis left the ship and found a birth aboard another ship, Belle Aventure of Brixham. of Wallis, the artist Sven Berlin recounts that the ship encountered a severe storm and had to jettison some of the cargo to stabilise the ship. August is the beginning of the hurricane season on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA and Canada and such storms generate huge swells that can last for weeks. This little painting is surely expressing Alfred Wallis’s memory of sea conditions in heavy weather. The ship carries reduced sail, enough to keep to wind to ride out the storm. A solitary figure stands at the stern, taking his turn at the ship’s wheel, as Wallis would have done. He also remembers the ratlines (rope ladders) that his duties required him to climb to make sail adjustments at all times of day and in all weathers. Here, in this painting Wallis remembers an experience that would have been awe-inspiring for any seaman; depicting a ship rising on a great swell may also reflect Wallis’s struggle against adversity. The ship took three months on the return voyage across the Atlantic and on 9th November Wallis was discharged in Teignmouth and was paid £6/12/4d for the voyage. On his return to Penzance he would have learned that in his absence the child Susan was carrying, a boy, had been born, died and been buried in Madron Churchyard. Wallis started painting at the age of 70, painting on discarded materials, particularly cardboard, with house paint and pots of enamel that he bought from the local store. This painting is a wonderful example; the verso reveals a period advertisement for Pure Quick Quaker Oats. Through his paintings Wallis has told us of his life experience; of the ships he knew and the places he visited. Through his influence on a group of artists who were to become central figures in the British Modernist movement, Walis’s work has earned a place the history of British art. Robert Jones author of Alfred Wallis Artist and Mariner' (3rd edition 2018)