Percy Wyndham Lewis
| Wyndham Lewis | |
|---|---|
Wyndham Lewis
photo by George Charles Beresford, 1913 |
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| Born |
Percy Wyndham Lewis 18 November 1882 Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | 7 March 1957 (aged 74) London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Slade School of Art |
| Known for | Painting, Poetry, Literature, Criticism |
| Movement | Vorticism |
| Spouse(s) | Gladys Anne Hoskins (1900–79) |
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was an English writer, painter and critic (he dropped the name 'Percy', which he disliked). He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST. His novels include his pre-World War I-era novel Tarr (set in Paris), and The Human Age, a trilogy comprising The Childermass (1928), Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta (both 1955), set in the afterworld. A fourth volume of The Human Age, The Trial of Man, was begun by Lewis but left in a fragmentary state at the time of his death. He also wrote two autobiographical volumes, Blasting and Bombardiering (1937) and Rude Assignment: A Narrative of my Career Up-to-Date (1950).
Lewis was reputedly born on his father's yacht off the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. His British mother and American father separated about 1893. His mother subsequently returned to England, where Lewis was educated, first at Rugby School, and then at the Slade School of Art, University College, London, before spending most of the 1900s travelling around Europe and studying art in Paris.
Mainly residing in London from 1908, Lewis published his first work (accounts of his travels in Brittany) in Ford Madox Ford's The English Review in 1909. He was a founder-member of the Camden Town Group in 1911. In 1912 he exhibited his Cubo-Futurist illustrations to Timon of Athens (later issued as a portfolio, the proposed edition of Shakespeare's play never materialising) and three major oil paintings at the second Post-Impressionist exhibition. This brought him into close contact with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly Roger Fry and Clive Bell, with whom he soon fell out. In 1912 he was commissioned to produce a decorative mural, a drop curtain, and more designs for The Cave of the Golden Calf, an avant-garde cabaret and nightclub on London's Heddon Street.
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