Editing Vorticism (section)

== Rebel artists ==
[[File:Kate Lechmere, Cuthbert Hamilton (seated), Edward Wadsworth and Wyndham Lewis 1914.jpg|thumbnail|[[Kate Lechmere]], [[Cuthbert Hamilton]] (seated), [[Edward Wadsworth]] and [[Wyndham Lewis]] at the [[Rebel Art Centre]], March 1914]]
A quarrel with Roger Fry provided Lewis with a pretext to leave the Omega Workshops and set up a rival organisation.<ref>Karin Orchard, '"A Laugh Like a Bomb": The History and Ideas of the Vorticists', in Paul Edwards (ed.), ''Blast: Vorticism 1914–1918''  (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), p. 15.</ref> Financed by Lewis's painter friend [[Kate Lechmere]], the [[Rebel Art Centre]] was established in March 1914 at 38 Great Ormond Street.<ref>Cork, ''Vorticism and Its Allies'', p. 17.</ref> It was to be a platform for the art and ideas of Lewis's circle, and a lecture series included talks by Lewis's friend the poet [[Ezra Pound]], the novelist Ford Madox Hueffer (later [[Ford Madox Ford]]) and the Italian 'Futurist', [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]]. Marinetti had been a familiar – and provocative – presence in London since 1910, and Lewis had seen him create an art movement on the basis of his 'Futurist' manifesto. It seemed as if everything novel or shocking in London was now being described as 'Futurist' – including the work of the English Cubists.<ref>Cork, ''Vorticism and Its Allies'', p. 20.</ref>

When Marinetti and the English Futurist [[Christopher R. W. Nevinson|C. R. W. Nevinson]] published a manifesto of 'Vital English Art',<ref>''The Observer'', 7 June 1914.</ref> giving the Rebel Art Centre as an address, it seemed like an attempted takeover. A few weeks later, Lewis took out an advertisement in ''The Spectator'' to announce the publication of 'The Manifesto of the Vorticists' – an English abstract art movement that was a 'parallel movement to [[Cubism]] and [[Expressionism]]' and would, the advertisement promised, be a 'Death Blow to [[Impressionism]] and [[Futurism]]'.<ref>''The Spectator'', 13 June 1914.</ref>