Wyndham Lewis: A Frog with a Paint Brush

My boyfriend and I cozied up under the blankets last night, and he read me some of his favorite excerpts from A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway's memoirs of his adventures among the American expatriate writers and artists in 1920's Paris.

In the book, Hemingway famously lampoons several well-known modernists, but his description of Wyndham Lewis [the founder of the Vorticist movement] is particularly scathing. He interchangeably refers to him as a "frog," "toe-jam" {ha!}, "evil," and "the nastiest man he has ever met." Lewis did become notorious for angering and offending almost every member of the artistic and literary community of the time, so Hemingway's assessment might not have been far from the truth...

I woke up this morning wondering: how is it possible that really nasty people can make beautiful art? I'm not personally a fan of Lewis' writing [though the boyfriend loves him]. But in my opinion, he is one of the most underrated visual artists of the early 20th century -- his portraits are particularly striking and poignant. For someone who loathed and mistreated fellow humans, he certainly seems to have had a knack for finding the beauty in them. Odd, isn't it?

:His portrait of the incomparable Dame Edith Sitwell {above} is one of my favorites by Lewis -- she seems so serene and wise sitting among her books. He captures her eccentricity and intelligence quite successfully. Not bad for a frog.

::See more of Lewis' work here / :: And I almost forgot, his manifesto, published in the little magazine Blast, is one of my favorites -- it's very funny. It's best read standing on a piece of furniture and speaking like a tyrannical ruler! I guess I don't mind his writing, after all.