Wyndham Lewis

Creation Myth

1927

© Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust (a registered charity)

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Not on display

Artist: Wyndham Lewis 1882–1957
Medium: Gouache, paper, printed paper and ink on paper
Dimensions: Support: 327 x 298 mm
frame: 522 x 493 x 20 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1956
Reference: T00107

Catalogue entry

T00107 CREATION MYTH 1927

Inscr. ‘W. Lewis. 1927.’ b.r.
Pen, gouache, newspaper and paper collage, 12 7/8×11 3/4 (32·5×29·5).
Purchased from the Zwemmer Gallery (Cleve Fund) 1956.
Coll: Arthur Crossland, sold Christie's, 3 February 1956 (65), bought by the Zwemmer Gallery.
Exh: Modern Paintings and Drawings lent by Arthur Crossland, Esq., Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 1939 (191); Tate Gallery, July–August 1956 (47).
Repr: Tate Gallery Report 1956–57, 1957.

On the back of one of the pieces of paper on which the drawing is executed there is a portrait drawing in pencil of a woman, her head resting on her hand.

A number of watercolours of the 1930s have the title ‘Creation Myth’, including one of 1933 exhibited at the Tate Gallery, July–August 1956 (97) (repr. Handley-Read, 1951, pl.10, as ‘Athanaton’).

The artist said that the Creation Myth was a fantasy of the worlds moving round together in a chaotic corner of creation. The idea of Creation is always a beginning of a spontaneous growth.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I