Editing Wyndham Lewis (section)

==Life and career==

=== Early life ===
Lewis was born on 18 November 1882, reputedly on his father's yacht off the Canadian province of [[Nova Scotia]].<ref name="odnb">Richard Cork, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101034517 "Lewis, (Percy) Wyndham (1882–1957)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004.</ref> His English mother, Anne Stuart Lewis (née Prickett), and American father, Charles Edward Lewis, separated about 1893.<ref name="odnb" /> His mother subsequently returned to England. Lewis was educated in England at [[Rugby School]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kenner |first1=Hugh |title=Wyndham Lewis |date=1954 |publisher=New Directions |location=New York |page=35}}</ref> and then, from 16, the [[Slade School of Fine Art]], [[University College London]], but left for Paris without finishing his course.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wyndham-Lewis|title=Wyndham Lewis|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=16 January 2023}}</ref> He spent most of the 1900s travelling around Europe and studying art in Paris. While in Paris, he attended lectures by [[Henri Bergson]] on [[process philosophy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kenner |first1=Hugh |title=Wyndham Lewis |date=1954 |publisher=New Directions |location=New York |page=47}}</ref>

===Early work and development of Vorticism (1908–1915)===
[[File:Wyndham Lewis, 1912, The Dancers.jpg|thumb|260px|Wyndham Lewis, 1912, ''The Dancers'']]
[[File:Workshop-Lewis.jpg|thumb|upright|260px|Wyndham Lewis, c.1914–15, ''Workshop'' ([[Tate]], London)]]
In 1908, Lewis moved to London, where he would reside for much of his life. In 1909, he published his first work, accounts of his travels in Brittany, in [[Ford Madox Ford]]'s ''The English Review''. He was a founding member of the [[Camden Town Group]], which brought him into close contact with the [[Bloomsbury Group]], particularly [[Roger Fry]] and [[Clive Bell]], with whom he soon fell out.

In 1912, Lewis exhibited his work at the second Postimpressionist exhibition: [[Cubo-Futurism|Cubo-Futurist]] illustrations to ''[[Timon of Athens]]'' and three major oil paintings. In 1912, he was commissioned to produce a decorative mural, a drop curtain, and more designs for [[The Cave of the Golden Calf]], an avant-garde cabaret and nightclub on [[Heddon Street]].<ref name="odnb" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/mol-34-257-244|title=The programme and menu from the Cave of the Golden Calf, Cabaret and Theatre Club &#124; Explore 20th Century London|website=www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk}}</ref>

From 1913 to 1915, Lewis developed the style of geometric abstraction for which he is best known today, which his friend [[Ezra Pound]] dubbed "[[Vorticism]]". Lewis sought to combine the strong structure of [[Cubism]], which he found was not "alive", with the liveliness of [[futurism (art)|Futurist]] 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's [[process 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." [[Nietzsche]] was an equally important influence.

Lewis had a brief tenure at Roger Fry's [[Omega Workshops]], but left after a quarrel with Fry over a commission to provide wall decorations for the [[Daily Mail]] [[Ideal Home Exhibition]], which Lewis believed Fry had misappropriated. He and several other Omega artists started a competing workshop called the [[Rebel Art Centre]]. The Centre operated for only four months, but it gave birth to the Vorticist group and its publication, ''[[Blast (British magazine)|Blast]]''.<ref name="fluxeuropa">[http://www.fluxeuropa.com/wyndhamlewis-art_and_ideas.htm "The Art and Ideas of Wyndham Lewis"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070205064138/http://www.fluxeuropa.com/wyndhamlewis-art_and_ideas.htm |date=5 February 2007 }}, FluxEuropa.</ref> In ''Blast'', 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, [[Expressionism|Expressionist]] drama. Lewis scholar Melania Terrazas identifies it as a precursor to the plays of [[Samuel Beckett]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Terrazas|first=Melania|date=2001|title=Tragic Clowns/Male Comedians: Wyndham Lewis's 'Enemy of the Stars' and Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'|url=http://www.wyndhamlewis.org/jwls/54-wyndham-lewis-annual-viii-2001|journal=Wyndham Lewis Annual|volume=8|pages=51|via=The Wyndham Lewis Society}}</ref>

=== World War I (1915–1918) ===
[[File:Wyndham Lewis photo by George Charles Beresford 1917.jpg|thumb|upright|260px|Wyndham Lewis, photograph by [[George Charles Beresford]], 1917|alt=|left]]
In 1915, the Vorticists held their only U.K. exhibition before the movement broke up, largely as a result of World War I. Lewis himself was posted to the [[Western Front (World War I)|western front]] and served as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Much of his time was spent in [[Artillery observer|Forward Observation Posts]] looking down at apparently deserted German lines, registering targets and calling down fire from batteries massed around the rim of the [[Ypres Salient]]. He made vivid accounts of narrow misses and deadly artillery duels.<ref>Paul Gough (2010) '' 'A Terrible Beauty': British Artists in the First World War'' (Sansom and Company) 203–239, {{ISBN|9781906593001}}.</ref>

After the [[Third Battle of Ypres]], Lewis was appointed an official [[war artist]] for the Canadian and British governments. For the Canadians, he painted ''[[c:File:Wyndham_Lewis-A_Canadian_Gun-pit.jpg|A Canadian Gun-pit]]'' (1918) from sketches made on [[Vimy Ridge]]. For the British, he painted one of his best-known works, ''[[A Battery Shelled]]'' (1919), drawing on his own experience at Ypres.<ref name="Must See">{{cite book|editor=[[Stephen Farthing]]|publisher=Cassell Illustrated/Quintessence|year=2006|title=1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die|isbn=978-1-84403-563-2}}</ref> 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 (collector)|John Quinn]], organized a Vorticist exhibition at the Penguin Club in New York in 1917. 

Between the years 1907–1911 Lewis had written what would be his first published novel, ''[[Tarr]]'', which was revised and expanded in 1914–15<ref>{{cite web|url=https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/tarr/|title=''Tarr''|first=Len|last=Gutkin|publisher=Modernism Lab, Yale University|location=New Haven|accessdate=2024-10-23}}</ref> and serialized in the London literary magazine ''[[The Egoist (periodical)|The Egoist]]'' from April 1916 until November 1917. It was first published in book form in 1918 by [[Alfred A. Knopf]] in New York and by ''The Egoist'' in London. It is widely regarded as one of the key texts in [[literary modernism]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Trotter|first=David|title=The Cambridge Companion to Modernism|date=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107495708|editor-last=Levenson|editor-first=Michael|edition=2nd|page=69|chapter=Chapter 3: The Modernist Novel|orig-year=1999}}</ref>

Lewis later documented his experiences and opinions of this period of his life in the autobiographical ''Blasting and Bombardiering'' (1937), which covered the time up to 1926.

=== ''Tyros'' and writing (1918–1929) ===
[[File:LewisAsTheTyro.jpg|thumb|260px|''Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro'', self-portrait, 1921]]
After the war, Lewis resumed his career as a painter with a major exhibition, ''Tyros and Portraits'', at the [[Leicester 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 of [[Ovid]]'' and ''Mr 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".<ref>[http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=116014593613208 ''Tyro''], scans of the publication at The Modernist Journals Project website.</ref> It was during the early 1920s that he perfected his incisive draughtsmanship.

By the late 1920s, he concentrated on writing. He launched yet 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|date=October 2020}} His major theoretical and cultural statement from this period is ''The Art of Being Ruled'' (1926).

''Time and Western Man'' (1927) is a cultural and philosophical discussion that includes penetrating critiques of [[James Joyce]], [[Gertrude Stein]] and [[Ezra Pound]] that are still read. Lewis also attacked the [[process philosophy]] of Bergson, [[Samuel Alexander]], [[Alfred North Whitehead]], and others. By 1931 he was advocating the art of ancient Egypt as impossible to surpass.<ref>[https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8357 ''Time and Western Man''], Morató, Yolanda. "Time and Western Man". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 2 March 2005; cf. [[Edward Chaney]], '"Mummy First: Statue After": Wyndham Lewis, Diffusionism, Mosaic Distinctions and the Egyptian Origins of Art,' ''Ancient Egypt in the Modern Imagination'', eds. E. Dobson and N. Tonks (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).</ref>

===Fiction and political writing (1930–1936)===
[[File:Wyndham Lewis photo by George Charles Beresford 1929.jpg|thumb|260px|upright=0.9|Lewis in 1929, photographed by [[George Charles Beresford]]|alt=|left]]

In 1930 Lewis published ''[[The Apes of God]]'', a biting satirical attack on the London literary scene, including a long chapter caricaturing the [[The Sitwells|Sitwell]] family. [[Richard Aldington]], however, found it "the greatest piece of ''writing'' since ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''", by [[James Joyce]].<ref>Kershaw, Alister, ed., ''Richard Aldington: Selected Critical Writings, 1928–1960'', Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970, p. 27.</ref> In 1937 Lewis published ''The Revenge for Love'', set in the period leading up to the [[Spanish Civil War]] and regarded by many as his best novel.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Neilson|first=Brett|date=1999|title=History's Stamp: Wyndham Lewis's The Revenge for Love and the Heidegger Controversy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1771454|journal=Comparative Literature|volume=51|issue=1|pages=24–41|doi=10.2307/1771454|jstor=1771454}}</ref> It is strongly critical of communist activity in Spain and presents English intellectual [[fellow traveller]]s 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 of ''Enemy 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 in ''The 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 on [[William Faulkner|Faulkner]] and a famous essay on [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]].

===Return to painting (1936–1941)===
[[File:Ezra Pound by Wyndham Lewis, 1919.jpeg|thumb|260px|Lewis's [[Ezra Pound]], 1919. The portrait is lost.]]
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. The ''[[The Surrender of Barcelona|Surrender of Barcelona]]'' (1936–37) makes a significant statement about the [[Spanish Civil War]]{{how?|date=February 2023}}. 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 in ''[[The Times]]'' of a letter of support for the exhibition, asking that something from the show be purchased for the national collection (signed by, among others, [[Stephen Spender]], [[W. H. Auden]], [[Geoffrey Grigson]], [[Rebecca West]], [[Naomi Mitchison]], [[Henry Moore]] and [[Eric Gill]]) the [[Tate Gallery]] bought the painting, ''Red Scene''. Like others from the exhibition, it shows an influence from [[Surrealism]] and [[de Chirico]]'s [[metaphysical 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 of [[Edith Sitwell]] ([[Edith Sitwell (Lewis)|1923–1936]]), [[T. S. Eliot]] ([[Portrait of T. S. Eliot|1938]] and 1949), and [[Ezra Pound (Lewis)|Ezra Pound]] ([[Ezra Pound (Lewis)|1939]]). His 1938 portrait of Eliot was rejected by the selection committee of the [[Royal Academy]] for their annual exhibition and caused a furore. [[Augustus John]] resigned in protest.

=== World War II and North America (1941–1945) ===
Lewis spent World War II in the United States and Canada. In 1941, in Toronto, he produced a series of watercolour fantasies centred on themes of creation, crucifixion and bathing.

He grew to appreciate the cosmopolitan and "rootless" nature of the American melting 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."<ref name="Bridson">{{cite book|last1=Bridson|first1=D. G.|title=The Filibuster: A Study of the Political Ideas of Wyndham Lewis|date=2014|publisher=A&C Black|pages=232–248}}</ref> He praised the contributions of African-Americans to American culture, and regarded [[Diego Rivera]], [[David Alfaro Siqueiros]], and [[José Clemente Orozco]] as the "best North American artists," predicting that when "the Indian culture of Mexico melts into the great American mass to the North, the Indian will probably give it its art."<ref name="Bridson" /> He returned to England in 1945.

===Later life and blindness (1945–1951)===
By 1951, he was completely blinded by a [[Pituitary adenoma|pituitary tumor]] that placed pressure on his optic nerve. It ended his artistic career, 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";<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gingkopress.com/09-lit/rotting-hill.html |title=Wyndham Lewis "Rotting Hill" |access-date=13 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612000822/http://www.gingkopress.com/09-lit/rotting-hill.html |archive-date=12 June 2011 |url-status=dead  }}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.historytalk.org/Notting%20Hill%20History%20Timeline/timelinechap5.pdf|publisher=Kensington & Chelsea Community History Group|title=Notting Hill history: 5 – Rotting Hill, 1940s|access-date=10 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131182401/http://www.historytalk.org/Notting%20Hill%20History%20Timeline/timelinechap5.pdf|archive-date=31 January 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''The Writer and the Absolute'' (1952), a book of essays on writers including [[George Orwell]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[André Malraux]]; and the semi-autobiographical novel ''Self Condemned'' (1954).

The [[BBC]] commissioned Lewis to complete his 1928 work ''The Childermass'', which was published as ''The Human Age'' and dramatized for the [[BBC Third Programme]] in 1955.<ref>''The Human Age''. Wyndham Lewis. ''The Listener'' (London, England), Thursday, 2 June 1955; p. 976; Issue 1370.</ref> In 1956, the [[Tate 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 fellow ''Blast'' signatory [[William Roberts (painter)|William Roberts]].