Higher-than-ever-prices

In June 1941 Alfred Wallis was taken to Madron Workhouse (then known as Madron Public Assistance Institution). He was 86, ill and destitute.

After writer George Manning-Saunders visited Wallis there, he wrote:

“Wallis denounced me until I could persuade him that my visit had nothing to do with painting. Then he talked rationally, with extreme bitterness against those who had encouraged him to paint, as he supposed, for their own gain and purpose. He told me that he had worked for God, and that the devil had stepped in and robbed him of his delight in the work. He produced a letter from one of his admirers urging him to make more paintings and send them along. Wallis demanded that I should read this letter aloud to the group of drowsing, senile old men who were his companions in that room. He told me that he could not work in such a place. He fluttered his thin hands and cried out in a shrill, broken treble that those who had betrayed him would surely be punished. His voice rang with the conviction of a prophet of old.”

In 1949, Manning-Saunders wrote to The Cornishman:

“Many famous artists have been neglected during their lives and acclaimed after their death. But it is doubtful whether any painter other than Wallis has been, during his lifetime, so much acclaimed and at the same time so tragically neglected."

Two Wallis paintings were recently sold at auction, fetching higher-than-ever prices: £120,650 and £184,150 - sums unimaginable to either Wallis or Manning-Saunders at the time.