Wyndham Lewis: an exhibition within the Fine Art, Design & Antiques fair Olympia London 1-6 March 2005

Apollo, Feb, 2005 by Angus Stewart

Lewis's influence was pervasive and continues to this day. His work from 1911 onwards affected others. The appearance of the portfolio Timon of Athens in 1913 confirmed his consequence. His publication of Blast (two issues, pamphlets that were iconoclastic in content and appearance) in the following year demonstrated his skill in distributing his thoughts and images to a wide public. For the rest of his life he was his own publicist, his views sweeping across a somewhat dazzled audience. Lewis became an entrepreneurial figure, one who would survive, perhaps precariously, but unsinkable.

Lewis served in the 1914-18 war first as a bombardier at Ypres and then as a Canadian war artist. The 1920s began with serious reading and study; Lewis was self-driven and garnered information as keenly as he developed his imagery. A generous man, his biography is in his work, in the pictorial and the written. Both include frank and generous dollops of experience and observation. Lewis becomes through familiarity a friend, one who jokes, teases and at the end of a conversation delivers a final thrust that turns all that seemed level upright.

I am intrigued by the extent to which he was in thrall to his subject's hair and mouth. The hair he often treated as a shape, a helmet, almost as felt, sometimes approaching metal and thus reminiscent of jousting armour. The mouth, however, he made almost invariably luscious, moist and sensual, the lips softly touching--an undefended entry to an internal world. Strangely, the mouths of men and women have much in common and this equality between the genders leads to speculation as to how Lewis plotted his images. There are signs that he had habitual components that he used and reused, varying their relationship by placement, colour or distortion as if he were using malleable plastic. However he came to the result, even what are considered minor or inferior works have interest.

Lewis was voluble, on paper and in speech. He was not one to mince matters, nor did he wrap up inconvenient topics in persiflage. Critics and academic writers are often unflattering about works that were done for fiscal reasons, or are portraits of society figures. There is little wisdom in such judgements, for too often they stem from the commentator's inherent disapproval or prejudice. As David Hockney so pertinently remarked, 'Today critics behave like a teacher, giving marks out of ten'. There is no need to plead for Lewis's status. His work, although too seldom seen, is evidence of his brilliance.

Wyndham Lewis was born in Canada in 1882, the son of a courageous but fickle American and his young English wife. When Lewis was six, the family sailed from America for England. His father left; his doughty and devoted mother supported him until her death in 1920. Lewis was educated at Rugby and the Slade, and expelled from both. However, learning was his bent--his erudition and memory became celebrated. He produced some fifteen-hundred recorded works of art and published forty novels and numerous writings on philosophy; politics and art. For nearly half a century he was a creative and intellectual force.