Person    | Male  Born 18/11/1882  Died 7/3/1957

Wyndham Lewis

Categories: Art, Literature

Countries: USA

Artist and writer. Born Percy Wyndham Lewis but he didn't like the Percy and dropped it. He was born in his wealthy American father's yacht off Amherst, Nova Scotia, to a British mother who left her husband in about 1893 giving up the trappings of wealth. Lewis travelled in Europe and studied in Paris but settled in London in 1909.

Involved with the Camden Town Group and the Omega Workshops. Co-founder of the Vorticist art movement and editor of their literary magazine BLAST. He decorated the interiors of Ford Madox Ford's London house and a restaurant in Percy Street.

1916 enlisted as a gunner and was then appointed an official war artist. After the war he devoted more time to literature, writing some novels. He became friends with the Sitwells and seems to have been unique in developing a bit of a pash on Edith, whose portrait he painted.

In 1930 he married the daughter of a German woman and published a pro-Hitler book. He and his wife spent the war in America and Canada. On his return he became The Listener's art critic which he remained until 1951 when blindness forced him to leave. Died in the Westminster Hospital.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Wyndham Lewis

Commemorated ati

Percy Wyndham Lewis

Percy Wyndham Lewis, 1882 - 1957, painter and writer, lived here. Greater Lon...

Read More

Other Subjects

Sir Godfrey Kneller

Sir Godfrey Kneller

Portrait painter. His set of portraits of Kit-Cat Club members is on display in the National Portrait Gallery.

Person, Art

1 memorial
J. M. W. Turner

J. M. W. Turner

Born (on St George's Day) in Covent Garden. Even as he became successful he refused to modify his working-class accent. Lived alone with his father. Had few friends, two mistresses but never marrie...

Person, Art, Seriously Famous

10 memorials
Gunter Demnig

Gunter Demnig

Born Berlin. From Stolpersteine: The artist Gunter Demnig remembers the victims of National Socialism by installing commemorative brass plaques in the pavement in front of their last address of ch...

Person, Art, Germany

1 memorial
Frederick Goodall

Frederick Goodall

Painter. Born 20 Arlington Street. Following visits to Egypt his work often featured that country, and he was very successful, enabling him to employ R. N. Shaw to build Grim's Dyke as his home. A ...

Person, Art, Egypt

2 memorials
Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing

Artist. Gillian C. Wearing, CBE, RA, was born on 6 December 1963 in  Birmingham, Warwickshire, (now Birmingham, West Midlands), a daughter of Bryan J. Wearing and Jean R. Wearing née Gregory. She c...

Person, Art, Sculpture

1 memorial