Get with the folk at Compton Verney

The work of legendary naïve artist Alfred Wallis reflects both the Cornish port of St Ives, while the ‘discovery’ in 1928 of the untrained Wallis by established artists Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood has now taken on an almost mythical significance.

Nicholson recognised and admired the individual vision of Wallis, the retired fisherman who took to painting as a hobby ‘for company’ on the death of his wife.

The Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson exhibition explores the influence of Wallis on Nicholson’s work, focusing on paintings and drawings by the two artists dating from the late 1920s to the 1940s.

Alongside, Wool Work: A Sailor’s Art will be on display, giving viewers the chance to think about the links between sailors, art and craft through the history of the embroidered wool pictures made by sailors in the 19th century.

Inspired by such images in Compton Verney’s own Folk Art collection and others from key maritime and private collections, the collection will reveal how ship portraits, flags and cartouches - carte de visite photographs, portrayed with great individual expression - produced remarkable personal tributes to the ships on which the men sailed and to their own maritime histories.

The techniques that the men employed were commonly found in the embroidery known as ‘Berlin work’, a genteel occupation more usually associated with middle class women.

In their embroideries, the sailors adopt wholeheartedly feminine craft techniques to produce their individual styles and new forms of expression. The images are also touching tributes to the ships the sailors worked on and they also follow the heritage of ship portraits going back to the Renaissance.

Throughout the year, works from Compton Verney’s British Folk Art collection will be moved to unexpected places around the building as part of a move - called What The Folk Say - to raise the profile of the genre and make them more accessible to visitors and other artists.

Amongst the 19 new juxtapositions are a ship’s figurehead is repositioned to peer into a 17th century Italian mirror, a knitted egg cosy now comforts a head carved on an alabaster relief and an untrained artist’s painting of a shipwreck is compared with that of an Italian master. The venue near Kineton will launch its folk art season on Saturday March 26. For further details, call 645500 or go online.