Wyndham Lewis

1882–1957

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Workshop’ c.1914–15 — Workshop c.1914–15
© Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust (a registered charity)
License this image

In Tate Britain

Walk Through British Art: 1910

Free entry

In Tate Britain

Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One

Now booking

In Tate Modern

Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art

Now booking

Biography

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).

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. Spotted a problem? Let us know.

Read full Wikipedia entry

Artworks

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Workshop’ c.1914–15

Wyndham Lewis Workshop

c.1914–15

On display at Tate Modern part of Shape of Light T01931

Wyndham Lewis, ‘The Crowd’ ?exhibited 1915

Wyndham Lewis The Crowd

?exhibited 1915

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art T00689

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Ezra Pound’ 1939

Wyndham Lewis Ezra Pound

1939

N05042

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Composition’ 1913

Wyndham Lewis Composition

1913

N05886

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Edith Sitwell’ 1923–35

Wyndham Lewis Edith Sitwell

1923–35

On display at Tate Britain part of Walk Through British Art N05437

Wyndham Lewis, ‘The Surrender of Barcelona’ 1934–7

Wyndham Lewis The Surrender of Barcelona

1934–7

N05768

Wyndham Lewis, ‘A Canadian War Factory’ 1943

Wyndham Lewis A Canadian War Factory

1943

T00135

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Vorticist Composition’ 1915

Wyndham Lewis Vorticist Composition

1915

T00625

Artist as subject

William Roberts, ‘The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915’ 1961–2

William Roberts The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915

1961–2

T00528

Michael Ayrton, ‘Portrait of Wyndham Lewis’ 1955

Michael Ayrton Portrait of Wyndham Lewis

1955

T07133

William Roberts, ‘Study for ‘The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel - Spring 1915’’ c.1961–2

William Roberts Study for ‘The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel - Spring 1915’

c.1961–2

View by appointment T12704

William Roberts, ‘Study for ‘Homage à Stulik’’ c.1948

William Roberts Study for ‘Homage à Stulik’

c.1948

View by appointment T12657

Vanessa Bell, recipient: Duncan Grant, ‘Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant’ [11 June 1923]

Vanessa Bell, recipient: Duncan Grant Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant

[11 June 1923]

View by appointment TGA 20078/1/44/121

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands, ‘Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed 8 Fitzroy Street’ [1915–16]

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed 8 Fitzroy Street

[1915–16]

View by appointment TGA 9125/5/47

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands, ‘Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands’ [March 1914]

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands

[March 1914]

View by appointment TGA 9125/5/61

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands, ‘Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed London County Council, Westminster Technical Institute’ [c.December 1915]

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed London County Council, Westminster Technical Institute

[c.December 1915]

View by appointment TGA 9125/5/80

Vanessa Bell, recipient: Duncan Grant, ‘Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant’ [15 February 1930]

Vanessa Bell, recipient: Duncan Grant Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant

[15 February 1930]

View by appointment TGA 20078/1/44/167

Film and audio

>

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

Listen

Modernity in Conflict - Michael Nath

Michael Nath, Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Westminster, examines the contribution of Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticist ...

Features

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Workshop’ c.1914–15

Art Term

Vorticism

The vorticists were a British avant-garde group formed in London in 1914 with the aim of creating art that expressed ...

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Workshop’ c.1914–15

Art Term

Rebel Art Centre

The Rebel Art Centre was founded by Wyndham Lewis in London in March 1914 as a meeting place for artists ...

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Edith Sitwell’ 1923–35

Art Term

Group X

Group X was a short lived group of British artists formed by Wyndham Lewis in 1920 to provide a continuing ...

Lost Art: Wyndham Lewis

Read

Lost Art: Wyndham Lewis

The Gallery of Lost Art is an immersive, online exhibition that tells the fascinating stories of artworks that have disappeared ...

William Roberts oil painting of a group of Vorticists at a Parisian restaurant in 1915

Tate Etc

Women that a movement forgot: The Vorticists I

The short-lived Vorticist movement was often seen as a predominantly masculine, muscular affair, but as one of the descendents of ...

Black and white photograph of Henri Gaudier Brzeska carving hieratic head of Ezra Pound.

Tate Etc

Drawing the vortex: The Vorticists II

The British avant-garde group was formed in London in 1914 by the artist, writer and polemicist Wyndham Lewis. Their idea ...

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Red Scene’ 1933–6

Tate Papers

Wild Geese Over the Mountains: Melodrama and the Sublime in the English Imaginary 1933–9: The Sublime Object

The paper traces the frequency with which familiar tropes of the sublime are used in the writing and painting of ...

Howard Kanovitz Kyle Morris Larry Rivers Donald Sanders and Kenneth Koch in a plane prepare for Kochs play The Red Robins at the Guild Halls John Drew Theatre in Southampton New York 1977

Tate Etc

Image/ word: Poets and visual artists

Vincent Katz on poets and visual artists; Tate Etc essay, summer 2009 issue

Wassily Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art 1912 Cover of the original German version

Tate Etc

Every work of art is the child of its time, often it is the mother of our emotions": Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky’s ground-breaking theoretical publication Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), with its emphasis on colours as “vibrations of the ...

You might like

David Bomberg, ‘The Mud Bath’ 1914

David Bomberg

1890–1957

Ambrose McEvoy, ‘The Ear-Ring’ exhibited 1911

Ambrose McEvoy

1878–1927

Sir William Orpen, ‘The Mirror’ 1900

Sir William Orpen

1878–1931

Sir Jacob Epstein, ‘Jacob and the Angel’ 1940–1

Sir Jacob Epstein

1880–1959

Glyn Warren Philpot, ‘Repose on the Flight into Egypt’ 1922

Glyn Warren Philpot

1884–1937

Dame Ethel Walker, ‘Decoration: The Excursion of Nausicaa’ 1920

Dame Ethel Walker

1861–1951

Pablo Picasso, ‘Bust of a Woman’ 1909

Pablo Picasso

1881–1973

Francis Dodd, ‘A Smiling Woman’ 1904

Francis Dodd

1874–1949

Augustus John OM, ‘Madame Suggia’ 1920–3

Augustus John OM

1878–1961

Harold Gilman, ‘Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table’ 1916–17

Harold Gilman

1876–1919

Lady Edna Clarke Hall, ‘Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliffe at Wuthering Heights’ c.1910–11

Lady Edna Clarke Hall

1879–1979

Sir Gerald Kelly, ‘The Jester (W. Somerset Maugham)’ 1911

Sir Gerald Kelly

1879–1972

William Roberts, ‘The Cinema’ 1920

William Roberts

1895–1980

Gwen John, ‘Nude Girl’ 1909–10

Gwen John

1876–1939

Philip Alexius de László, ‘Lady Wantage’ 1911

Philip Alexius de László

1869–1937