Alfred Wallis was a semi-literate Cornish fisherman, who was almost deaf, and whose mental health was fragile and largely deaf, who took up painting at the age of seventy, never having received any tuition. He painted largely out of loneliness, selling his pictures for a few pence to anyone who wanted them. He died in a workhouse above Penzance at the age of eighty-seven. Wallis used to paint old scraps of cardboard, most of them oddly shaped and supplied by the local grocer. He insisted on using ship's paint, a medium which he understood, and he employed very few colors. His subject was usually the sea and boats - scenes he had known during his early days as an Atlantic seaman and offshore fisherman. Painting was for him, a link to his memories of the past. Despite his lack of training, during his lifetime Wallis had a few distinguished patrons, for the most part artists, scholars and museum officials, among whom were Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and H.

S. Ede (then at the Tate Gallery).