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

Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert

Considered the most influential English painter since Turner. Born Munich, eldest son of a Danish artist and French-educated English mother. His family moved to England when he was 8. Trained as an...

Person, Art, Jack the Ripper suspects

3 memorials
Abzal Khan

Abzal Khan

Student. Participant in the creation of the Will Crooks mural.

Person, Art

1 memorial
Kate Greenaway

Kate Greenaway

Illustrator of children's books and poet. Born 21 Cavendish Street N1 (now entirely post-war blocks of flats). She and her family moved to Upper Street in 1852. She worked for London branch of Marc...

Person, Art, Children, Poetry, Seriously Famous

3 memorials
Stephen Barkway
1 memorial
Desmond Rochfort

Desmond Rochfort

Mural artist active in late 1970s - 1983.  Worked with Binnington on two murals at Royal Oak.

Person, Art

1 memorial