EXHIBITIONS PICTURE OF THE WEEK; Beach Babies (1933). by Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Rugby Art Gallery & Museum. (Copyright: Estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis.)

Born in Nova Scotia of an American father and English mother, Wyndham Lewis was educated at Rugby School, winning a scholarship to the Slade School at the age of 16.

He quickly established himself as a leading figure in the brief heyday of the British avant-garde in the years immediately before the First World War. He soon graduated from the Camden Town Group through the Rebel Art Centre, formed with contemporaries like C R W Nevinson, William Roberts and David Bomberg, to become the central figure in Vorticism, the British variant of Cubism and Futurism.

An aggressive iconoclast, Wyndham Lewis edited the Vorticist journal Blast, the fame of which in the history of 20th-century British art is out of all proportion to its lifespan of just two issues.

He was an official war artist during the First World War and, like all his contemporaries, he retreated into a more conservative style during the 1920s.

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Publication information: Article title: EXHIBITIONS PICTURE OF THE WEEK; Beach Babies (1933). by Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Rugby Art Gallery & Museum. (Copyright: Estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis.). Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Birmingham Post (England). Publication date: June 10, 2000. Page number: 13. © 2009 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group.

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