| Ezra Pound | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Artist | Wyndham Lewis |
| Year | 1939 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 76.2 cm × 101.6 cm (30.0 in × 40.0 in) |
| Location | Tate,London |
Ezra Pound is a portrait of the American poetEzra Pound, made by his friendWyndham Lewis in 1939.[1]
Lewis began as anavant-garde painter and became friends with Pound in 1909 or 1910. In 1914, they co-founded the art movementVorticism.[1] Due to a lack of commercial success, Lewis turned to writing, which became his main means of expression from the 1920s. He created some later paintings, most notablyportraits in oil of his avant-gardist friends. These included portraits ofT. S. Eliot,Stephen Spender and Pound.[1][2] He made sketches ofJames Joyce but never painted him.[2]
Lewis had made a three-quarter-length portrait of a standing Pound which was exhibited in 1919 but is lost. In the 1920s, Lewis was critical of Pound's writings, but eventually decided to celebrate him with another portrait, which he finished in 1939. A watercolour sketch and a crayon study of the head for the 1939 portrait are both dated 1938.[1]
The portrait of Pound shows the poet leaning back in a chair with closed eyes. Beside him is a table with newspapers. The composition is based on diagonal lines formed by Pound's reclining body, offset by vertical lines in the image's left side.[1]
The painterWalter Sickert saw the painting in 1939 and sent a telegram to Lewis where he declared him the greatest portraitist of all time.[2]Tate in London bought the work the same year.[1]