James Dixon, Mary Jewels, Alfred Wallis: Paintings by Three Self Taught Artists

It is difficult to establish a comfortable definition to describe the paintings of Mary Jewels (1886-1977), James Dixon (1887-1970) and Alfred Wallis (1855-1942). The most popular term is Primitive, which in itself is a rather condescending escape-route, often used by academics or trained artists to defend the systemic indoctrination of their own approach. During her lifetime Jewels refused to submit paintings to exhibitions that used Primitive in its title, a case in point, being the 1977 British Primitive and Naïve Painting show, held at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, which contained works by Alan Lowndes and Bryan Pearce. Naïve is Another Much misused description. However when using a brush to apply paint to a surface in a descriptive manner, it is reasonable to suggest that these three individuals knew precisely what they wish to create. It is clear through their chosen subjects and their urge to manifest these things in painted form, that they wished to convey to us something of importance.

David R. T. Archer

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