Wyndham Lewis | |
|---|---|
 Lewis in 1913 | |
| Born | Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-11-18)18 November 1882 Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | 7 March 1957(1957-03-07) (aged 74) London, England |
| Education | Slade School of Fine Art,University College London |
| Known for | Painting, poetry, literature, criticism |
| Movement | Vorticism |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Iris Barry |
Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was aCanadian-born British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of theVorticist movement in art and editedBlast, the literary magazine of the Vorticists.[1]
His novels includeTarr (1916–17) andThe Human Age trilogy, comprisingThe Childermass (1928),Monstre Gai (1955) andMalign Fiesta (1955). A fourth volume,The Trial of Man, remained unfinished upon his death. He wrote two autobiographical volumes:Blasting and Bombardiering (1937) andRude Assignment: A Narrative of my Career Up-to-Date (1950).
Percy Wyndham Lewis was born on 18 November 1882, reputedly on his father's yacht off theCanadian province ofNova Scotia.[2] His English mother, Anne Stuart Lewis (née Prickett), and American father, Charles Edward Lewis, separated about 1893.[2] His mother subsequently returned to England. Lewis was educated in England atRugby School[3] and then, from 16, theSlade School of Fine Art,University College London, but left for Paris without finishing his course.[4] He spent most of the 1900s travelling around Europe and studying art in Paris. Whilst there he attended lectures byHenri Bergson onprocess philosophy.[5]
In 1908 Lewis moved toLondon, England, where he would reside for much of his life. In 1909 he published his first work, accounts of his travels inBrittany, inFord Madox Ford'sThe English Review. He was a founding member of theCamden Town Group, which brought him into close contact with theBloomsbury Group, particularlyRoger Fry andClive Bell, with whom he soon fell out.
In 1912 he exhibited his work at the secondPost-Impressionist exhibition:Cubo-Futurist illustrations toTimon of Athens and three major oil paintings. In 1912 he was commissioned to produce a decorative mural, a drop curtain, and more designs forThe Cave of the Golden Calf, anavant-garde nightclub andcabaret onHeddon Street.[2][6]
From 1913 to 1915 Lewis developed the style of geometricabstraction for which he is best known today, which his friendEzra Pound dubbed "Vorticism". Lewis sought to combine the strong structure ofCubism, which he found was not "alive", with the liveliness ofFuturist art, which lacked structure. The combination was a strikingly dramatic critique of modernity. In his early visual works Lewis may have been influenced by Bergson'sprocess philosophy. Though he was later savagely critical of Bergson, he admitted in a letter to Theodore Weiss (19 April 1949) that he "began by embracing his evolutionary system." The German philosopherFriedrich Nietzsche was an equally important influence.
Lewis had a brief tenure at Roger Fry'sOmega Workshops, but left after a quarrel with Fry over a commission to provide wall decorations for theDaily MailIdeal Home Exhibition, which Lewis believed Fry had misappropriated. He and several other Omega artists started a competing workshop called theRebel Art Centre. The Centre operated for only four months, but it gave birth to the Vorticist group and its publication,Blast.[7] InBlast Lewis formally expounded the Vorticist aesthetic in a manifesto, distinguishing it from other avant-garde practices. He also wrote and published a play,Enemy of the Stars. It is a proto-absurdist,Expressionist drama. The Lewis scholar Melania Terrazas identifies it as a precursor to the plays ofSamuel Beckett.[8]
In 1915 the Vorticists held their only British exhibition before the movement broke up, largely as a result of theFirst World War. Lewis himself joined up under theDerby Scheme in March 1916 just before conscription was brought in. He was assigned to theRoyal Garrison Artillery (RGA) and after training was posted to 183rd Siege Battery, RGA, forming atWeymouth, Dorset, in which he served as aBombardier. At the second attempt he was accepted as an officer cadet and went to the cadet school atTrowbridge before his battery deployed overseas. On completing his officer training he was commissioned as a2nd Lieutenant and in January 1917 was posted to the newly-raised330th Siege Battery, RGA. 330th Siege Battery embarked on 24 May 1917 for theWestern Front. It served on the Flanders coast and then atYpres during theThird Ypres offensive. Much of Lewis's time was spent inForward Observation Posts looking down at apparently deserted German lines, registering targets and calling down fire from batteries massed around the rim of theYpres Salient. He wrote vivid accounts of narrow misses and deadly artillery duels, though not all of these can be corroborated.[9][10]
After the Third Battle of Ypres Lewis was appointed an officialwar artist for theCanadian andBritish governments. For the Canadians he paintedA Canadian Gun-pit (1918) from sketches made onVimy Ridge. For the British he painted one of his best-known works,A Battery Shelled (1919), drawing on his own experience at Ypres.[11] Lewis exhibited his war drawings and some other paintings of the war in an exhibition, "Guns", in 1918. Although the Vorticist group broke up after the war, Lewis's patron,John Quinn, organised a Vorticist exhibition at the Penguin Club inNew York City in 1917.
Between 1907 and 1911 Lewis had written what would be his first published novel,Tarr, which was revised and expanded in 1914–15[12] and serialised in the London literary magazineThe Egoist from April 1916 to November 1917. It was first published in book form in 1918 byAlfred A. Knopf in New York and byThe Egoist in London. It is widely regarded as one of the key texts inliterary modernism.[13]
Lewis later documented his experiences and opinions of this period of his life in the autobiographicalBlasting and Bombardiering (1937), which covered the time up to 1926.
After the war Lewis resumed his career as a painter with a major exhibition,Tyros and Portraits, at theLeicester Galleries in 1921. "Tyros" were satirical caricatures intended to comment on the culture of the "new epoch" that succeeded the First World War.A Reading ofOvid andMr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro are the only surviving oil paintings from this series. Lewis also launched his second magazine,The Tyro, of which there were only two issues. The second (1922) contained an important statement of Lewis's visual aesthetic: "Essay on the Objective of Plastic Art in our Time".[14] It was during the early 1920s that he perfected his incisive draughtsmanship.
By the late 1920s he concentrated on writing. He launched another magazine,The Enemy (1927–1929), largely written by himself and declaring its belligerent critical stance in its title. The magazine and other theoretical and critical works he published from 1926 to 1929 mark a deliberate separation from the avant-garde and his previous associates. He believed that their work failed to show sufficient critical awareness of those ideologies that worked against truly revolutionary change in the West, and therefore became a vehicle for these pernicious ideologies.[citation needed] His major theoretical and cultural statement from this period isThe Art of Being Ruled (1926).
Time and Western Man (1927) is a cultural and philosophical discussion that includes penetrating critiques ofJames Joyce,Gertrude Stein andEzra Pound that are still read. Lewis also attacked theprocess philosophy of Bergson,Samuel Alexander,Alfred North Whitehead and others. By 1931 he was advocatingthe art ofancient Egypt as impossible to surpass.[15]
In 1930 Lewis publishedThe Apes of God, a biting satirical attack on the London literary scene, including a long chapter caricaturing theSitwell family. The writerRichard Aldington, however, found it "the greatest piece ofwriting sinceUlysses", byJames Joyce.[16] In 1937 Lewis publishedThe Revenge for Love, set in the period leading up to theSpanish Civil War and regarded by many as his best novel.[17] It is strongly critical ofcommunist activity in Spain and presents English intellectualfellow travellers as deluded.
Despite serious illness necessitating several operations, he was very productive as a critic and painter. He produced a book of poems,One-Way Song, in 1933, and a revised version ofEnemy of the Stars. An important book of critical essays also belongs to this period:Men without Art (1934). It grew out of a defence of Lewis's satirical practice inThe Apes of God and puts forward a theory of "non-moral", or metaphysical, satire. The book is probably best remembered for one of the first commentaries onWilliam Faulkner and a famous essay onErnest Hemingway.
After becoming better known for his writing than his painting in the 1920s and early 1930s, he returned to more concentrated work on visual art, and paintings from the 1930s and 1940s constitute some of his best-known work. TheSurrender of Barcelona (1936–37) makes a significant statement about theSpanish Civil War.[how?] It was included in an exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in 1937 that Lewis hoped would re-establish his reputation as a painter. After the publication inThe Times of a letter of support for the exhibition, asking for something from the show to be purchased for the national collection (signed by, among others,Stephen Spender,W. H. Auden,Geoffrey Grigson,Rebecca West,Naomi Mitchison,Henry Moore andEric Gill) theTate Gallery bought the painting,Red Scene. Like others from the exhibition, it shows an influence fromSurrealism andGiorgio de Chirico'smetaphysical painting. Lewis was highly critical of the ideology of Surrealism, but admired the visual qualities of some Surrealist art.
During this period Lewis also produced many of his most well-known portraits, including pictures ofEdith Sitwell (1923–1936),T. S. Eliot (1938 and 1949), andEzra Pound (1939). His 1938 portrait of Eliot was rejected by the selection committee of theRoyal Academy for their annual exhibition and caused a furore.Augustus John resigned in protest.
Lewis spent theSecond World War in the United States and Canada. In 1941 inToronto he produced a series ofwatercolour fantasies centred on themes of creation,crucifixion and bathing.
He grew to appreciate thecosmopolitan and "rootless" nature of the Americanmelting pot, declaring that the greatest advantage of being American was to have "turned one's back on race,caste, and all that pertains to the rooted state."[18] He praised the contributions ofAfrican Americans to American culture, and regardedDiego Rivera,David Alfaro Siqueiros andJosé Clemente Orozco as the "best North American artists," predicting that when "theIndian culture of Mexico melts into the great American mass to the North, the Indian will probably give it its art."[18] He returned to England in 1945.
By 1951 he was completely blinded by apituitary tumour that placed pressure on hisoptic nerve. It ended his career as a painter, but he continued writing until his death. He published several autobiographical and critical works:Rude Assignment (1950),Rotting Hill (1951), a collection of allegorical short stories about his life in "the capital of a dying empire";[19][20]The Writer and the Absolute (1952), a book of essays on writers includingGeorge Orwell,Jean-Paul Sartre andAndré Malraux; and the semi-autobiographical novelSelf Condemned (1954).
TheBBC commissioned Lewis to complete his 1928 workThe Childermass, which was published asThe Human Age and dramatised for theBBC Third Programme in 1955.[21] In 1956 theTate Gallery held a major exhibition of his work, "Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism", in the catalogue to which he declared that "Vorticism, in fact, was what I, personally, did and said at a certain period"—a statement which brought forth a series of "Vortex Pamphlets" from his fellowBlast signatoryWilliam Roberts.
From 1918 to 1921, Lewis lived withIris Barry, with whom he had two children.[who?] He is said to have shown little affection for them.[22][23]
In 1930, Lewis married Gladys Anne Hoskins (1900–1979), who was affectionately known as Froanna. They lived together for 10 years before marrying, and never had children.[24] Lewis did not tell all of his friends about his marriage, as he was jealous of them meeting her.[22] Froanna modelled for some of his work, and characters in his books reflect her.[22][24]
Lewis converted toCatholicism in 1921.[25][26] He died in 1957 and was cremated atGolders Green Crematorium. By the time of his death he had written 40 books.
In 1931, after a visit toBerlin, Lewis publishedHitler, a book presentingAdolf Hitler as a "man of peace", with members of his party being threatened by communist street violence. His unpopularity among liberals andanti-fascists grew, especially after Hitler came to power in 1933.[citation needed] Following a second visit to Germany in 1937, Lewis changed his views and began to retract his previous political comments. He recognised the reality of Nazi treatment of Jews after a visit to Berlin in 1937. In 1939 he published an attack onantisemitism titledThe Jews, Are They Human?,[a] which was favourably reviewed inThe Jewish Chronicle. He also publishedThe Hitler Cult (1939), which firmly revoked his earlier support for Hitler.[27]
Politically, Lewis remained an isolated figure through the 1930s. InLetter toLord Byron,W. H. Auden called Lewis "that lonely old volcano of the Right." Lewis thought there was what he called a "left-wing orthodoxy" in Britain in the 1930s. He believed it was against Britain's self-interest to ally with theSoviet Union, "which the newspapers most of us read tell us has slaughtered out-of-hand, only a few years ago, millions of its better fed citizens, as well as its whole imperial family."[28]
InAnglosaxony: A League that Works (1941), Lewis reflected on his earlier support forfascism:
Fascism – once I understood it – left me colder than communism. The latter at least pretended, at the start, to have something to do with helping the helpless and making the world a more decent and sensible place. It does start from the human being and his suffering. Whereas fascism glorifies bloodshed and preaches that man should model himself upon the wolf.[18]
His sense that America and Canada lacked a British-typeclass structure had increased his opinion ofliberal democracy, and in the same pamphlet he defends liberal democracy's respect for individual freedom against its critics on both the left and right.[18] InAmerica and Cosmic Man (1949) Lewis argued thatFranklin D. Roosevelt, theUS president from 1933 to 1945, had successfully managed to reconcile individual rights with the demands of the state.[18]
In recent years[when?] there has been renewed critical and biographical interest in Lewis and his work, and he is now regarded as a major British artist and writer of the twentieth century.[29] Rugby School hosted an exhibition of his works in November 2007 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of his death. TheNational Portrait Gallery in London held a major retrospective of his portraits in 2008. Two years later, held at the Fundación Juan March (Madrid, Spain), a large exhibition (Wyndham Lewis 1882–1957) featured a comprehensive collection of Lewis's paintings and drawings. As Tom Lubbock pointed out, it was "the retrospective that Britain has never managed to get together."[30]
In 2010Oxford World's Classics published a critical edition of the 1928 text ofTarr, edited by Scott W. Klein ofWake Forest University. TheNasher Museum of Art atDuke University held an exhibition entitled "The Vorticists: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914–18" from 30 September 2010 through 2 January 2011.[31] The exhibition then travelled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection,Venice (29 January – 15 May 2011: "I Vorticisti: Artisti ribellia a Londra e New York, 1914–1918") and then toTate Britain under the title "The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World" between 14 June and 4 September 2011.
Several readings by Lewis are collected onThe Enemy Speaks, anaudiobook published incompact disc form in 2007 and featuring extracts from "One Way Song" andThe Apes of God, as well as radio talks titled "When John Bull Laughs" (1938), "A Crisis of Thought" (1947) and "The Essential Purposes of Art" (1951).[32]
Ablue plaque now stands on the house inKensington, London, where Lewis lived, No. 61 Palace Gardens Terrace.[33]
In his essay "Good Bad Books"George Orwell presents Lewis as the exemplary writer who is cerebral without being artistic. Orwell wrote, "Enough talent to set up dozens of ordinary writers has been poured into Wyndham Lewis's so-called novels… Yet it would be a very heavy labour to read one of these books right through. Some indefinable quality, a sort of literary vitamin, which exists even in a book like [1921 melodrama]If Winter Comes, is absent from them."[34]
In 1932Walter Sickert sent Lewis atelegram in which he said that Lewis's pencil portrait ofRebecca West proved him to be "the greatest portraitist of this or any other time."[35]
For many years Lewis's novels have been criticised for their satirical and hostile portrayals of Jews.[citation needed]Tarr was revised and republished in 1928, giving a new Jewish character a key role in making sure a duel is fought. This has been interpreted as an allegorical representation ofa supposed Zionist conspiracy against the West.[36] His literary satireThe Apes of God has been interpreted similarly, because many of the characters are Jewish, including the modernist author and editor Julius Ratner, a portrait which blends antisemitic stereotype with the historical literary figuresJohn Rodker and James Joyce.
A key feature of these interpretations is that Lewis is held to have kept his conspiracy theories hidden and marginalised[citation needed]. Since the publication ofAnthony Julius'sT. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form (1995), where Lewis's antisemitism is described as "essentially trivial", this view is no longer taken seriously.[according to whom?]
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