An Introduction to this website

Alfred Wallis has been in my life from the very beginning. As a child, a painted portrait of Alfred by my grandfather hung over the stairwell of our family home looking down over us as we went about our business. We would pass him day in, day out - watched by the eyes of a man we'd never met, nor ever could - but that somehow held a reverence over us that was captivating and mysterious.

Yet, this painting was all I really knew of Wallis during the first 27 years of my life, hearing only some additional recollections by my grandfather Bill Wallis (captured and published by him for this site) telling tales of Alfred 'scurrying down Fore Street' and how Alfred's nephew (Bill's father) had thrown away tens of paintings, dismissing them as 'rubbish'. How true this was of people across St Ives who disregarded his art as no better than the hand of a child could create.

Many are now glad that there are no longer thousands of his works in existence, for their rarity is what continues to fuel the increasing value of his work, both in artistic and monitary terms.

With this in mind, I guess it is a luxury to me to have found Wallis' art as a by-product of being aware of the man. Although I have acquired a passion for his work and grown to admire every element of his talent - it is his story as part of my own family history that has driven me to create this site as a resource that was not available to me when I began my voyage towards discovering Alfred Wallis.

This site represents an attempt to draw together elements of Wallis' story and bring them to a new audience - something that the internet alone can do better than any other medium. Knowing that every single painting in existence started its life inside 3 Back Road West makes the story of every piece of art that left its front door an interesting tale in it's own right. Over 60 years after Wallis's death, his works can be found throughout the UK as well as in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, America and in private collections across the globe. Their journey is almost as remarkable as that of their creator's own life.

This site aims to reunite some of the images that were once stuck to the wall in Back Road West, or left on the window ledge to dry , coming together to uncover the undocumented life of Alfred Wallis through his art.

In addition to his works, this site gives access to some resources that surround Wallis as well as making recommendations as to where to find more indepth information - particularly steering visitors towards the wealth of information brought together by the likes of Peter Barnes, Sven Berlin, Matthew Gale, Edwin Mullins and most recently Robert Jones. Each of these authors are scholars on Wallis in their own right and their work is unmatched in terms of piecing together elements of his history.

However, one man rises above them all interms of foresight, taking the step of preserving some of the only first hand source material on the subject to survive. Dr Roger Slack, resident and general practitioner in St Ives for much of his life, committed almost 4 hours of interviews with members of Wallis's extended family and members of the local community to tape in the 1950's and 60's. Without this source material, almost all of the books that followed Berlin's book 'Alfred Wallis: Primitive' could not have been written.

Dr Slack's preservation and an enthusiam for Wallis continues to allow for individuals to draw their own conclusion as to whether Wallis was a angry old man, driven to madness and haunted by the ghost of his deceased wife or instead a competent individual, growing old in the company of his painted memories and forging an income by continuing to trade them in the ways he had his whole life through.

Wallis was an industrious individual who worked hard and aimed to live in whatever manner he saw fit. The volume of his output across the 20 or so years he painted was outstanding and this site represents merely 300 or so of his collated works. Having included less than half of the collection held at Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge at the point of launching this site - it is my belief that at least 600 works survive across the globe, at least two thirds of which remain hidden in private collections. Many of these have probably not even left Cornwall.

Every effort has been made to seek permission to use the source material included in this site and I appeal to anyone who holds any information about Wallis, his life or the location of his art to contact me personally, emailing andy@alfredwallis.org.uk

My thanks go out to all those who have assisted in the creation of this site, in particular to the following:

• Janet Axten and all at the St Ives Trust & Archive Study Centre
• Sebastiano Barrassi - Curator of Collections, Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge
• Dr Roger Slack - we are forever indebted to you for all you have done
• Robert Jones - for repositioning the perception of Wallis as a mariner
• Peter Barnes - for his painstaking research into the facts of Wallis' life
• Matthew Gale - for his support through The Tate Gallery and for his books on Wallis
• My wife, friends and family - for putting up with me going on and on about it all....

I hope you find the site useful and look forward to hearing from the people who visit the site.

Andy Blair (September 2006)

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Andy Blair is member of staff at the University of Surrey, a qualified musician and a Bacholar of Music. He has also studied in areas of social science and has a keen interest in the visual arts.