Editing Wyndham Lewis

{{Short description|English painter and writer (1882–1957)}}
{{About|the Vorticist painter and author|others of that name|Wyndham Lewis (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=December 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox artist
| name             = Wyndham Lewis
| image            = Wyndham Lewis photo by George Charles Beresford 1913.jpg
| alt              = Lewis smirking and looking to the camera
| caption          = Lewis in 1913
| birth_name       = Percy Wyndham Lewis
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=yes|1882|11|18}}
| birth_place      = [[Amherst, Nova Scotia]], Canada
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=yes|1957|3|7|1882|11|18}}
| death_place      = London, England
| nationality      = British
| spouse           = {{marriage|Gladys Anne Hoskins|1930}}
| field            = Painting, poetry, literature, criticism
| training         = [[Slade School of Fine Art]], [[University College London]]
| movement         = [[Vorticism]]
| partner          = [[Iris Barry]]
}}
'''Percy Wyndham Lewis''' (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the [[Vorticist]] movement in art and edited ''[[Blast (British magazine)|Blast]]'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists.<ref name="NYTart">{{cite news|author=Grace Glueck|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/22/arts/art-view-wyndham-lewis-painter-polemicist-iconoclast.html?scp=3&sq=%22wyndham%20lewis%22&st=cse  |title=Wyndham Lewis:Painter, Polemicist, Iconoclast|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 September 1985|access-date=11 June 2015}}</ref>

His novels include ''[[Tarr]]'' (1916–17) and ''The Human Age'' trilogy, comprising ''The Childermass'' (1928), ''Monstre Gai'' (1955) and ''Malign Fiesta'' (1955). A fourth volume, ''The Trial of Man'', remained unfinished upon his death. He wrote two autobiographical volumes: ''[[Blasting and Bombardiering]]'' (1937) and ''Rude Assignment: A Narrative of my Career Up-to-Date'' (1950).

==Life and career==

=== Early life ===
Percy Wyndham 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. Whilst there 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]], England, 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 he exhibited his work at the second [[Post-Impressionism|Post-Impressionist]] 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]] nightclub and [[cabaret]] 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." The German philosopher [[Friedrich 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. The 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 British exhibition before the movement broke up, largely as a result of the [[First World War]]. 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 [[Government of Canada|Canadian]] and [[Government of the United Kingdom|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]], organised a Vorticist exhibition at the Penguin Club in [[New York City]] in 1917. 

Between 1907 and 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 serialised in the London literary magazine ''[[The Egoist (periodical)|The Egoist]]'' from April 1916 to 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 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 [[Art of ancient Egypt|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. The writer [[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|url-access=subscription}}</ref> It is strongly critical of [[Communism|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]] and a famous essay on [[Ernest 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 for something from the show to 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 [[Giorgio 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.

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

He grew to appreciate the [[Cosmopolitanism|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 [[Indigenous peoples of Mexico|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 tumour]] that placed pressure on his [[optic nerve]]. It ended his career as a painter, 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 dramatised 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]].

== Personal life ==
From 1918 to 1921 Lewis lived with [[Iris Barry]], with whom he had two children.{{who?|date=February 2023}} He is said to have shown little affection for them.<ref name="Froanna">{{cite web|author=National Portrait Gallery|title=Portrait of Froanna|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/wyndhamlewis/froanna/aboutheportrait.html|access-date=10 June 2015|publisher=National Portrait Gallery}}</ref><ref name="Froanna2">{{cite web|author=National Portrait Gallery|title=Froanna – Portrait of the Artist's Wife|url=http://www.npg.org.uk/wyndhamlewis/froanna/index.html|access-date=10 June 2015|publisher=National Portrait Gallery|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080709003229/https://www.npg.org.uk/wyndhamlewis/froanna/aboutheportrait.html|archive-date=9 July 2008}}</ref>

In 1930 Lewis married Gladys Anne Hoskins (1900–1979), who was affectionately known as Froanna. They lived together for 10 years before marrying, and never had children.<ref name="antipathos">{{cite web|author=David Trotter|date=23 January 2001|title=A most modern misanthrope: Wyndham Lewis and the pursuit of anti-pathos|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/23/londonreviewofbooks|access-date=10 June 2015|work=The Guardian <nowiki>/</nowiki> London Review of Books}}</ref> Lewis did not tell all of his friends about his marriage, as he was jealous of them meeting her.<ref name="Froanna"/> Froanna modelled for some of his work, and characters in his books reflect her.<ref name="Froanna"/><ref name="antipathos" />
[[File:Percy Wyndham Lewis - Golders Green Crematorium.jpg|thumb|260px|Plaque dedicated to Lewis at Golders Green Crematorium]]
Lewis was a [[Catholic Church in the United Kingdom|Roman Catholic]].<ref name="a132">{{cite book | last=Orwell | first=George | title=Orwell's England | publisher=Penguin Books Limited | date=3 May 2001 | isbn=978-0-14-192663-6 | url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VaAyCXc0ewMC | access-date=12 May 2025 | page=412}}</ref> He died in 1957 and was cremated at [[Golders Green Crematorium]]. By the time of his death he had written 40 books.

=== Political views ===
In 1931, after a visit to [[Berlin]], Lewis published ''Hitler'' (1931), a book presenting [[Adolf Hitler]] as a "man of peace", with members of his party being threatened by communist street violence. His unpopularity among liberals and [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascists]] grew, especially after Hitler came to power in 1933.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}} Following a second visit to Germany in 1937, Lewis changed his views and began to retract his previous political comments. He recognised the reality of Nazi treatment of Jews after a visit to Berlin in 1937. In 1939 he published an attack on [[antisemitism]] titled ''The Jews, Are They Human?'',{{Efn|The title is based on a contemporary best-seller, "The English, Are They Human?".|name=|group=}} which was favourably reviewed in ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]''. He also published ''The Hitler Cult'' (1939), which firmly revoked his earlier support for Hitler.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald-insignificant/149977815/ |title='Insignificant Blur' |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |page=12 |date=1940-02-03 |access-date=2024-06-24 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Politically Lewis remained an isolated figure through the 1930s. In ''Letter to [[Lord Byron]]'', [[W. H. Auden]] called Lewis "that lonely old volcano of the Right." Lewis thought there was what he called a "left-wing orthodoxy" in Britain in the 1930s. He believed it was against Britain's self-interest to ally with the [[Soviet Union]], "which the newspapers most of us read tell us has slaughtered out-of-hand, only a few years ago, millions of its better fed citizens, as well as its whole imperial family."<ref>''[[Time and Tide (magazine)|Time and Tide]]'', 2 March 1935, p.&nbsp;306.)</ref>

In ''Anglosaxony: A League that Works'' (1941), Lewis reflected on his earlier support for [[fascism]]:<blockquote>Fascism – once I understood it – left me colder than communism. The latter at least pretended, at the start, to have something to do with helping the helpless and making the world a more decent and sensible place. It does start from the human being and his suffering. Whereas fascism glorifies bloodshed and preaches that man should model himself upon the wolf.<ref name="Bridson" /></blockquote>His sense that America and Canada lacked a British-type [[class structure]] had increased his opinion of [[liberal democracy]], and in the same pamphlet he defends liberal democracy's respect for individual freedom against its critics on both the left and right.<ref name="Bridson" /> In ''America and Cosmic Man'' (1949) Lewis argued that [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], the [[US president]] from 1933 to 1945, had successfully managed to reconcile individual rights with the demands of the state.<ref name="Bridson" />

== Legacy ==
In recent years{{When|date=May 2025|reason=Needs clarification}} there has been renewed critical and biographical interest in Lewis and his work, and he is now regarded as a major British artist and writer of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13825577.2010.517291 | doi=10.1080/13825577.2010.517291 | title=Bête Noire or Scapegoat? | year=2010 | last1=Morató | first1=Yolanda | journal=European Journal of English Studies | volume=14 | issue=3 | pages=221–234 | s2cid=142626791 | url-access=subscription }}</ref> Rugby School hosted an exhibition of his works in November 2007 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of his death. The [[National Portrait Gallery (London)|National Portrait Gallery]] in London held a major retrospective of his portraits in 2008. Two years later, held at the Fundación Juan March (Madrid, Spain), a large exhibition (''Wyndham Lewis 1882–1957'') featured a comprehensive collection of Lewis's paintings and drawings. As Tom Lubbock pointed out, it was "the retrospective that Britain has never managed to get together."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tomlubbock.com/downloads/new/Wyndham_Lewis.pdf|title=Wyndham Lewis – 1882–1957: Fundación Juan March, Madrid}}</ref>

In 2010 [[Oxford World's Classics]] published a critical edition of the 1928 text of ''Tarr'', edited by Scott W. Klein of [[Wake Forest University]]. The [[Nasher Museum of Art]] at [[Duke University]] held an exhibition entitled "[[Vorticism|The Vorticists]]: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914–18" from 30 September 2010 through 2 January 2011.<ref>[http://nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions_vorticists.php Nasher Museum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308220042/http://nasher.duke.edu/exhibitions_vorticists.php|date=8 March 2013}} Retrieved 17 September 2010</ref> The exhibition then travelled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, [[Venice]] (29 January – 15 May 2011: "I Vorticisti: Artisti ribellia a Londra e New York, 1914–1918") and then to [[Tate Britain]] under the title "The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World" between 14 June and 4 September 2011.

Several readings by Lewis are collected on ''The Enemy Speaks'', an [[audiobook]] published in [[compact disc]] form in 2007 and featuring extracts from "One Way Song" and ''The Apes of God'', as well as radio talks titled "When John Bull Laughs" (1938), "A Crisis of Thought" (1947) and "The Essential Purposes of Art" (1951).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ltmrecordings.com//index.php?target=/wyndhamlewiscat.html|title=LTM Recordings &#124; Independent Record Label &#124; Official Website}}</ref>

A [[blue plaque]] now stands on the house in [[Kensington]], London, where Lewis lived, No. 61 Palace Gardens Terrace.<ref>{{cite web|title=Wyndham Lewis blue plaque|url=http://openplaques.org/plaques/637|access-date=11 May 2013|publisher=openplaques.org}}</ref>[[File:Blue Plaque Wyndham Lewis.jpg|thumb|right|260px|Blue plaque: Wyndham Lewis, 61 Palace Gardens Terrace, London W8]]

=== Critical reception ===
In his essay "[[Good Bad Books]]" [[George Orwell]] presents Lewis as the exemplary writer who is cerebral without being artistic. Orwell wrote, "Enough talent to set up dozens of ordinary writers has been poured into Wyndham Lewis's so-called novels…  Yet it would be a very heavy labour to read one of these books right through. Some indefinable quality, a sort of literary vitamin, which exists even in a book like [1921 melodrama<nowiki>]</nowiki> ''[[If Winter Comes (novel)|If Winter Comes]]'', is absent from them."<ref name= "gutenberg-au">[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html Fifty Orwell Essays], A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook</ref>

In 1932 [[Walter Sickert]] sent Lewis a [[Telegraphy|telegram]] in which he said that Lewis's pencil portrait of [[Rebecca West]] proved him to be "the greatest portraitist of this or any other time."<ref>Campbell, Peter (11 September 2008). "At the National Portrait Gallery". ''London Review of Books'', p. 12.</ref>

==== Anti-semitism ====
For many years Lewis's novels have been criticised for their satirical and hostile portrayals of Jews.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} ''Tarr'' was revised and republished in 1928, giving a new Jewish character a key role in making sure a duel is fought. This has been interpreted as an allegorical representation of [[Stab-in-the-back myth|a supposed Zionist conspiracy against the West]].<ref name="ayers">Ayers, David. (1992) ''Wyndham Lewis and Western Man''. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.</ref> His literary satire ''The Apes of God'' has been interpreted similarly, because many of the characters are Jewish, including the modernist author and editor Julius Ratner, a portrait which blends antisemitic stereotype with the historical literary figures [[John Rodker]] and James Joyce.

A key feature of these interpretations is that Lewis is held to have kept his conspiracy theories hidden and marginalised{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}. Since the publication of [[Anthony Julius]]'s ''T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form'' (1995), where Lewis's antisemitism is described as "essentially trivial", this view is no longer taken seriously.{{according to whom|date=March 2020}}

==Books==
*''[[Tarr]]'' (1918) (novel)
*''The Caliph's Design : Architects! Where is Your Vortex?'' (1919) (essay)
*''The Art of Being Ruled'' (1926) (essays)
*''[[The Wild Body]]: A Soldier of Humour And Other Stories'' (1927) (short stories)
*''The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare'' (1927) (essays)
*''Time and Western Man'' (1927) (essays)
*''The Childermass'' (1928) (novel)
*''Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting Pot'' (1929) (essays)
*''Satire and Fiction'' (1930) (criticism)
*''[[The Apes of God]]'' (1930) (novel)
*''[https://archive.org/details/Hitler_Lewis Hitler]'' (1931) (essay)
*''The Diabolical Principle and the Dithyrambic Spectator'' (1931) (essays)
*''Doom of Youth'' (1932) (essays)
*''Filibusters in Barbary'' (1932) (travel; later republished as ''Journey into Barbary'')
*''Enemy of the Stars'' (1932) (play)
*''Snooty Baronet'' (1932) (novel)
*''One-Way Song'' (1933) (poetry)
*''Men Without Art'' (1934) (criticism)
*''Left Wings over Europe; or, How to Make a War about Nothing'' (1936) (essays)
*''[[Blasting and Bombardiering]]'' (1937) (autobiography)
*''The Revenge for Love'' (1937) (novel)
*''Count Your Dead: They are Alive!: Or, A New War in the Making'' (1937) (essays)
*''The Mysterious Mr. Bull'' (1938)
*''The Jews, Are They Human?'' (1939) (essay)
*''The Hitler Cult and How it Will End'' (1939) (essay)
*''America, I Presume'' (1940) (travel)
*''The Vulgar Streak'' (1941) (novel)
*''Anglosaxony: A League that Works'' (1941) (essay)
*''America and Cosmic Man'' (1949) (essay)
*''Rude Assignment'' (1950) (autobiography)
*''Rotting Hill'' (1951) (short stories)
*''The Writer and the Absolute'' (1952) (essay)
*''Self Condemned'' (1954) (novel)
*''The Demon of Progress in the Arts'' (1955) (essay)
*''Monstre Gai'' (1955) (novel)
*''Malign Fiesta'' (1955) (novel)
*''The Red Priest'' (1956) (novel)
*''The Letters of Wyndham Lewis'' (1963) (letters)
*''The Roaring Queen'' (1973; written 1936 but unpublished) (novel)
*''Unlucky for Pringle'' (1973) (short stories)
*''Mrs Duke's Million'' (1977; written 1908–10 but unpublished) (novel)
*''Creatures of Habit and Creatures of Change'' (1989) (essays)

==Paintings==
[[File:Wyndham Lewis-A Canadian Gun-pit.jpg|thumb|''A Canadian Gun-pit'', (1919) – [[National Gallery of Canada]]]]
[[File:Lewis, Percy Wyndham - A Battery Shelled - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[A Battery Shelled]]'' (1919) – [[Imperial War Museum]]]]
*''The Theatre Manager'' (1909), watercolour
*''The Courtesan'' (1912), pen and ink, watercolour
*''Indian Dance'' (1912), chalk and watercolour
*''Russian Madonna'' (also known as ''Russian Scene'') (1912), pen and ink, watercolour
*''Lovers'' (1912), pen and ink, watercolour
*''Mother and Child'' (1912), oil on canvas, now lost
*''The Dancers'' (study for ''Kermesse'') (1912), black ink and watercolour, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-dancers-study-for-kermesse-233022/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/3/view_as/grid (image])
*''Composition'' (1913), pen and ink, watercolour, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-composition-n05886 (image])
*''Plan of War'' (1913–14), oil on canvas
*''Slow Attack'' (1913–14), oil on canvas
*''New York'' (1914), pen and ink, watercolour
*''Argol'' (1914), pen and ink, watercolour
*''[[The Crowd (Lewis)|The Crowd]]'' (1914–15), oil paint and graphite on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-the-crowd-t00689 (image])
*''Workshop'' (1914–15), oil on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-workshop-t01931 (image])
*''Vorticist Composition'' (1915), gouache and chalk, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-vorticist-composition-t00625 (image])
*''A Canadian Gun-pit'' (1919), oil on canvas, [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wyndham_Lewis-A_Canadian_Gun-pit.jpg (image])
*''[[A Battery Shelled]]'' (1919), oil on canvas, [https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/16688 (image])
*''Mr Wyndham Lewis as a Tyro'' (1920–21), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/mr-wyndham-lewis-as-tyro-78273/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/1/view_as/grid (image])
*''A Reading of Ovid (Tyros)'' (1920–21), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-reading-of-ovid-tyros-211971/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/3/view_as/grid (image])
*''Seated Figure'' (c. 1921) [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/seated-figure-211973 (image])
*''Mrs Schiff'' (1923–24), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/mrs-schiff-200550 (image])
*''[[Edith Sitwell (Lewis)|Edith Sitwell]]'' (1923–1935), oil on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-edith-sitwell-n05437 (image])
*''Bagdad'' (1927–28), oil on wood, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/bagdad-200557/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/3/view_as/grid (image]}
*''Three Veiled Figures'' (1933), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/three-veiled-figures-38532/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/2/view_as/grid (image])
*''Creation Myth'' (1933–1936, oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/creation-myth-222847/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/1/view_as/grid (image])
*''Red Scene'' (1933–1936), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/red-scene-200547 (image])
*''One of the Stations of the Dead'' (1933–1837), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/one-of-the-stations-of-the-dead-107259/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/2/view_as/grid (image]}
*''[[The Surrender of Barcelona]]'' (1934–1937), oil on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-the-surrender-of-barcelona-n05768 (image])
*''Panel for the Safe of a Great Millionaire'' (1936–37), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/panel-for-the-safe-of-a-great-millionaire-77977 (image])
*''Newfoundland'' (1936–37), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/newfoundland-222848/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/view_as/grid/page/1 (image])
*''Pensive Head'' (1937), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/pensive-head-144538/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/3/view_as/grid (image])
*''[[Portrait of T. S. Eliot]]'' (1938), oil on canvas
*''La Suerte'' (1938), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/la-suerte-200543 (image])
*''John Macleod'' (1938), oil on canvas [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/john-macleod-246968/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/2/view_as/grid (image])
*''[[Ezra Pound (Lewis)|Ezra Pound]]'' (1939), oil on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-ezra-pound-n05042 (image])
*''Mrs R.J. Sainsbury (1940–41), oil on canvas, [https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/mrs-rj-sainsbury (image])
*''A Canadian War Factory'' (1943), oil on canvas, [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-canadian-war-factory-200551/search/actor:lewis-wyndham-18821957/page/1/view_as/grid (image])
*''Nigel Tangye'' (1946), oil on canvas, [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-nigel-tangye-t04118 (image])

==Notes and references==
{{notelist}}
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Ayers, David. (1992) ''Wyndham Lewis and Western Man''. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
* Chaney, Edward (1990) "Wyndham Lewis: The Modernist as Pioneering Anti-Modernist", ''[[Modern Painters (magazine)|Modern Painters]]'' (Autumn, 1990), III, no. 3, pp.&nbsp;106–109.
* Edwards, Paul. (2000) ''Wyndham Lewis, Painter and Writer''. New Haven and London: Yale U P.
* Edwards, Paul and Humphreys, Richard. (2010) "Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)". Madrid: Fundación Juan March
* Gasiorek, Andrzej. (2004) ''Wyndham Lewis and Modernism'' [http://writersandtheirwork.co.uk/index.php/component/hikashop/product/690-wyndham-lewis-and-modernism Wyndham Lewis and Modernism]. Tavistock: Northcote House.
* Gasiorek, Andrzej, Reeve-Tucker, Alice, and Waddell, Nathan. (2011) ''[http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409400547 Wyndham Lewis and the Cultures of Modernity]''. Aldershot: Ashgate.
* Grigson, Geoffrey (1951). ''A Master of Our Time: A Study of Wyndham Lewis''. London: Methuen.
* Hammer, Martin (1981) ''Out of the Vortex: Wyndham Lewis as Painter'', in ''[[Cencrastus]]'' No. 5, Summer 1981, pp. 31–33, {{issn|0264-0856}}.
* Jaillant, Lise. "[https://www.academia.edu/8965731/Rewriting_Tarr_Ten_Years_Later_Wyndham_Lewis_the_Phoenix_Library_and_the_Domestication_of_Modernism Rewriting Tarr Ten Years Later: Wyndham Lewis, the Phoenix Library and the Domestication of Modernism]." Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies 5 (2014): 1–30.
* Jameson, Fredric. (1979) ''Fables of Aggression: Wyndham Lewis, the Modernist as Fascist''. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.
* Kenner, Hugh. (1954) ''Wyndham Lewis''. New York: New Directions.
* Klein, Scott W. (1994) ''The Fictions of James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis: Monsters of Nature and Design.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Leavis, F.R. (1964). [https://archive.org/stream/commonpursuit007591mbp#page/n247/mode/2up "Mr. Eliot, Mr. Wyndham Lewis and Lawrence."] In ''The Common Pursuit'', New York University Press.
* Michel, Walter. (1971)  ''Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings''. Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Meyers, Jeffrey. (1980)  ''The Enemy: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis.'' London and Henley: Routledge & Keegan Paul.
* Morrow, Bradford and Bernard Lafourcade. (1978) ''A Bibliography of the Writings of Wyndham Lewis''. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press.
* Normand, Tom. (1993) ''Wyndham Lewis the Artist: Holding the Mirror up to Politics''. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
* O'Keeffe, Paul. (2000) ''Some Sort of Genius: A Biography of Wyndham Lewis''. London: Cape.
* Orage, A.R. (1922). [https://archive.org/stream/readersandwriter00oragiala#page/52/mode/2up "Mr. Pound and Mr. Lewis in Public."] In ''Readers and Writers (1917–1921)'', London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.
* Rothenstein, John (1956). [https://archive.org/stream/modernenglishpai000577mbp#page/n13/mode/2up "Wyndham Lewis."] In ''Modern English Painters. Lewis To Moore'', London: Eyre & Spottiswoode.
* Rutter, Frank (1922). [https://archive.org/stream/somecontemporary00ruttuoft#page/176/mode/2up "Wyndham Lewis."] In ''Some Contemporary Artists'', London: Leonard Parsons.
* Rutter, Frank (1926). [https://archive.org/stream/evomoder00rutt#page/n7/mode/2up ''Evolution in Modern Art: A Study of Modern Painting, 1870–1925''], London: George G. Harrap.
* Schenker, Daniel. (1992) ''Wyndham Lewis: Religion and Modernism''. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama Press.
* Spender, Stephen (1978). ''The Thirties and After: Poetry, Politics, People (1933–1975)'', Macmillan.
* Stevenson, Randall (1982), ''The Other Centenary: Wyndham Lewis, 1882–1982'', in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), ''[[Cencrastus]]'' No. 10, Autumn 1982, pp. 18–21, {{issn|0264-0856}}
* Waddell, Nathan. (2012) ''[http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=472815 Modernist Nowheres: Politics and Utopia in Early Modernist Writing, 1900–1920]''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
* Wagner, Geoffrey (1957). [https://archive.org/stream/wyndhamlewisport00wagn#page/n7/mode/2up ''Wyndham Lewis: A Portrait of the Artist as the Enemy''], New Haven: Yale University Press.
* Woodcock, George, ed. ''Wyndham Lewis in Canada''. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Publications, 1972.

==External links==
{{external links|date=August 2020}}
* [http://www.unirioja.es/wyndhamlewis/ Wyndham Lewis Society]
* {{IMDb name|id=0943922}}
* [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wyndham-Lewis Wyndham Lewis] at ''[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]]''
* {{Gutenberg author | id=49898 | name=Wyndham Lewis}}
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100706171518/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Time_and_Western_Man Time and Western Man]'' essay by Kirsty Dootson
* {{FadedPage|id=Lewis, Wyndham|name=Wyndham Lewis|author=yes}}
* ''[https://www.ltmrecordings.com/the_enemy_speaks_ltmcd2411.html Wyndham Lewis: The Enemy Speaks]'' audiobook CD
* [http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM04612.html Wyndham Lewis Collection] at [[Cornell University Library]]
* [https://thewalrus.ca/self-condemned/ Wyndham Lewis: Self Condemned] essay in ''[[The Walrus]]''
* {{Art UK bio}}
*[https://www.uvic.ca/library/about/support/donors/cyril-j-fox.php Cyril J. Fox-Wyndham Lewis collection] at the [[University of Victoria]]
* [https://search.library.uvic.ca/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma9920498423807291&context=L&vid=01VIC_INST:01UVIC Wyndham Lewis collection (1945–1956)] at the University of Victoria
* {{Librivox author |id=14912}}
* {{NPG name}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110116035527/http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/poetics-essay.html?id=238696 "Long Live the Vortex!" and "Our Vortex"] (1914) at the [[Poetry Foundation]]
* [https://archivesfa.library.yorku.ca/fonds/ON00370-f0000584.htm Wyndham Lewis Collection] at [[Clara Thomas]] [http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/archivesspecialcollections/ Archives & Special Collections], [[York University]]
* Wyndham Lewis Art Collection [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00213 1898–1949] and [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00836 1915–1977, undated] at the [[Harry Ransom Center]], [[University of Texas at Austin]]
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