Wyndham Lewis Portraits

Exhibition of portraits by Wyndham Lewis at the National Portrait Galley .

I thought this was a really good exhibition with some super pictures but I did not warm to the artists. I must admit to a certain bias. As you may have realised fro the blog (which incidentally I’ve now managed to maintain for a year) I am a big Bloomsbury fan and Lewis fell out with them in 1914 hence I was probably predisposed to not like him!

I found his rather self conscious use of self image for public use as shown by the first set of self portraits annoying. I got a real sense of someone who wanted to be someone but he didn’t really mind who and in what field. I also disliked his attach on people who had helped him in his book “The Apes of God” unpleasant.

However that said this is an art show and I thought the pictures were great. There were some super drawings including one of Sacheverell Sitwell which gave a real insight into the sitters. However lets draw a veil over the hideous Virginia Woolf.

My favourite was the big portrait of Edith Sitwell but again there seemed to be cruelty in not painting her hands which were her only feature that she likes. I love the very full background to the picture.

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