Lot 1963
ALFRED WALLIS (1855-1942)
FRENCH FISHIN BOAT [sic]
Inscribed with title, oil on card
17.5 x 29.5cm approx.
Provenance: Collection of Mr and Mrs Christopher Mason, London, to whom given by their close friend Alan Rowe who had purchased it for £1000 from Ann Stokes, second wife of the artist, critic and writer Adrian Stokes, November 1973.
Christopher Mason (1928-2018) was married to the artist Joanna Carrington (1931-2003), niece of Dora Carrington. He was a film maker, writer and painter and made a film about Alfred Wallis as well as two about the Bloomsbury Group. Mason met Jim Ede in 1955 through a musician friend called Etienne Amyot. At that time, Ede was Wallis's most devoted collector. At Ede's meticulously furnished home, Les Charlottieres near Blois on the River Loire, Mason saw scores of works by Wallis for the first time. The two men remained friends and Ede was a vital and valued contributor to Mason's short film about Wallis in 1973, entitled Alfred Wallis - Artist and Mariner.
Joanna Carrington had long coveted the picture and wrote in her diary, "I must say I am glad Alan has got it. It is such a beautiful one - and being selfish about it - apart from owning it myself, the next best thing as it does mean feasting one's eyes every time we go there."
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In this painting inscribed "French Fishing Boat", Wallis recalls one of the French boats that would visit Cornwall in the summer months. French crabbers from Brittany first came from Camaret in 1902 to fish the Scillies and the north coast of Cornwall. Using crab-pots they fished for crayfish, lobster and crab and their vessels had wet wells to keep the shellfish alive till they returned to Brittany. These boats became a feature of the summer scene in St Ives, Newquay and Newlyn, and this practice continued until the mid-1960s. The early French crabbers were sail vessels and were gaff-rigged, but in this and one other painting Wallis remembers lug-sailed vessels.
Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood came to St Ives on a day visit in 1928. Their 'discovery' of Wallis has been described as a watershed in the history of modern art. They found in Wallis "An art, simple, direct, honest…unencumbered by theory, completely true to itself."(Oxford Times; Ben Nicholson). Wallis's work was to influence both artists. After the initial visit, Ben and Winifred Nicholson and Christopher Wood came to stay in St Ives; the Nicholsons stayed for three weeks and Wood for three months. Wood wrote to the Nicholsons: "Admiral Wallis I often see" and "more and more influence de Wallis, not a bad master though." Wallis's work acted as a liberating force on Wood who would also have seen the French crabbers in St Ives and later painted fishing boats in Brittany during visits in 1928 and 1930 shortly before his untimely death in 1930. Ben Nicholson received bundles of paintings posted to him by Wallis and introduced the work to a small group of collectors including Jim Ede. Wallis also sent bundles of paintings to Ede, then junior curator at the Tate Gallery, and the work he purchased formed the basis of the present day Tate and Kettle's Yard, Cambridge collections.
Robert Jones 2018
Robert Jones is the author of Alfred Wallis Artist and Mariner (3rd edition, 2018). We are grateful to Robert Jones for his assistance with the cataloguing of this picture.
Quotations are reproduced by kind permission of the executor of the estates of the late Christopher Mason & the late Joanna Carrington.
