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90-572: Vorticist paintings emphasised 'modern life' as an array of bold lines and harsh colours drawing the viewer's eye into the centre of the canvas and vorticist sculpture created energy and intensity through 'direct carving'. In the summer of 1913 Roger Fry, with Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell , set up the Omega Workshops in Fitzrovia – in the heart of bohemian London. Fry was an advocate of an increasingly abstract art and design practice, and

180-747: A conscientious objector , Grant joined his new lover, David Garnett , in setting up as fruit farmers in Suffolk. Both their applications were initially unsuccessful, but eventually the Central Tribunal agreed to recognise them on condition of their finding more appropriate premises. Vanessa Bell found the house named Charleston near Firle in Sussex. Relationships with Clive Bell remained amicable, and Bell stayed with them for long periods fairly often – sometimes accompanied by his own mistress, Mary Hutchinson. Between 1932 and 1934 Grant and Bell created

270-466: A boarder for two terms), 1899–1901, where he was awarded several art prizes. From about 1899/1900 to 1906, Grant lived with his aunt and uncle, Sir Richard and Lady Strachey and their children. When Grant was younger, he accompanied Lady Strachey to "picture Sunday" which gave him the opportunity to meet with eminent painters. Lady Strachey was able to persuade Grant's parents that he should be allowed to pursue an education in art. In 1902, Grant

360-835: A gunner on the Western Front , and in 1918 became an official war artist . Roberts's first one-man show was at the Chenil Gallery in London in 1923, and a number of his paintings from the twenties were purchased by the Contemporary Art Society for provincial galleries in the UK. In the 1930s it could be argued that Roberts was artistically at the top of his game; but, although his work was exhibited regularly in London and, increasingly, internationally, he always struggled financially. This situation became worse during

450-594: A house in multiple occupancy backing on to the Regent's Canal, near Primrose Hill . When other tenants moved out the Robertses took over additional rooms, and eventually, with financial help from a friend of Sarah's, they were able to buy the whole house. This house remained their home for the rest of their lives and the neighbourhood would provide Roberts with subject matter. The Roberts's son, John, joined them. He had studied physics at University College London, and became

540-466: A lecture series included talks by Lewis's friend the poet Ezra Pound , the novelist Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford Madox Ford ) and the Italian 'Futurist', Filippo Tommaso Marinetti . Marinetti had been a familiar – and provocative – presence in London since 1910, and Lewis had seen him create an art movement on the basis of his 'Futurist' manifesto. It seemed as if everything novel or shocking in London

630-859: A poet and guitar scholar. In 1948 Roberts showed work at the Royal Academy summer exhibition for the first time – a self-portrait and a portrait of Sarah in a headscarf as The Gypsy – and he would show work there in every subsequent year until his death. In the 1950s, when cutting-edge British art was abstract, Roberts's work was in danger of seeming out of date. Roberts re-evaluated the Royal Academy as an exhibiting opportunity, as it attracted large and diverse crowds that were generally more interested in representational art than in abstraction, as well as press coverage. From this point on Roberts's annual contribution became increasingly sensational – spectacular in scale, in use of colour and in dramatic subject matter. The Temptation of St Anthony (1951), Revolt in

720-602: A portrait of H. E. Bates for the New Coterie magazine in 1927. It was the purchase of a number of his paintings by the Contemporary Art Society for major provincial art galleries that kept Roberts financially afloat. He supplemented his income by teaching a life class with Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Art for one day a week from 1925 – a post he held until 1960. Towards the end of

810-513: A revival of interest in the work of this artist who always worked outside the mainstream. Roberts was born into a working-class family in London's East End on 5 June 1895. The family were then living at 44 Blackstone Road in Hackney, and his father was a carpenter; they later moved to 4 Blanchard Road (by October 1898) and 20 London Fields West Side (by April 1911) nearby. From an early age Roberts showed an outstanding talent for drawing, and this

900-580: A series of "Vortex Pamphlets", in which he railed against the exhibition, the catalogue, the press coverage and the account of his own career contained in Modern English Painters by the Tate's director, John Rothenstein , which appeared at about the same time. Targets of earlier visual satires had included Walter Sickert and Roger Fry . To publicise his own work he also published Some Early Abstract and Cubist Work 1913–1920 (London, 1957),

990-401: A store room for many years. Grants' murals were eventually restored and the space reopened to the public in the 1990s. Grant's early affairs were exclusively homosexual. His lovers included his cousin, the writer Lytton Strachey , the future politician Arthur Hobhouse and the economist John Maynard Keynes , who at one time considered Grant the love of his life because of his good looks and

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1080-596: A successful New York lawyer and art collector, John Quinn . Relying on Pound's recommendations, a New York Vorticist exhibition was built around forty-six works by Lewis – some already in Quinn's collection – with additional work by Etchells, Roberts, Dismorr, Saunders and Wadsworth. The exhibition was to be at an artist-run establishment, the Penguin Club in New York. Pound arranged for the transportation of works across

1170-539: A variety of subjects, Roberts became somewhat obsessed with the self-portrait, and a number of his self-portraits would be exhibited by the National Portrait Gallery in 1984. Roberts was often described as reclusive, and he was very wary about interviewers – especially after an Observer journalist who visited him produced an article that Roberts felt was concerned more with his rather spartan lifestyle than with his work. "What kind of art critic

1260-534: A vertiginous, but not exotic, island in the placid and respectable archipelago of English Art.' A quarrel with Roger Fry provided Lewis with a pretext to leave the Omega Workshops and set up a rival organisation. Financed by Lewis's painter friend Kate Lechmere , the Rebel Art Centre was established in March 1914 at 38 Great Ormond Street. It was to be a platform for the art and ideas of Lewis's circle, and

1350-456: Is generally assumed that Grant's sexual relations with Bell ended in the months before Angelica was born (Christmas, 1918), they continued to live together for more than 40 years. During that time, their relationship was mainly domestic and creative; they often painted in the same studio together, praising and critiquing each other's work. Living with Vanessa Bell was no impediment to Grant's relationships with men, either before or after Angelica

1440-506: Is this, who sets out to criticise my pictures, but criticises my gas stove and kitchen table instead?" he asked. In 1974 the Arts Council exhibition "Vorticism and Its Allies", curated by Richard Cork , recognised Roberts's important role within the group; however, when Cork approached him for an interview Roberts was uncooperative. Unsurprisingly, in his eighties Roberts's draughtsmanship deteriorated, but he continued working until

1530-808: The Brancacci Chapel , in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine , Florence . Grant also made a study of the Portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, one half of the diptych by Piero della Francesca in the Uffizi and was greatly impressed by the frescoes of Piero in the Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo . On his return, at the advice of Simon Bussy, Grant made a copy of the Angel musicians in Piero's Nativity in

1620-738: The Caillebotte bequest of French Impressionists . In January 1907, and again in the summer of 1908, Grant spent a term at the Slade School of Art . In 1908, Grant painted a portrait of John Maynard Keynes , whom he had met the previous year, while the two were on holiday in Orkney. A year later, the pair would share rooms on Belgrave Road . In 1909, Grant visited Michael and Gertrude Stein in Paris and saw their collection that included paintings by, among others, Picasso and Matisse . In

1710-620: The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation "in recognition of his artistic achievement and his outstanding service to British painting". In that same year he began painting The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel, Spring 1915 (completed 1962; now in the Tate Gallery), a nostalgic recollection of a boisterous Vorticist gathering in 1915 that can be read as an attempt by Roberts to build bridges following

1800-573: The Chenil Galleries , also in July, where his large abstract painting Mud Bath was prominently displayed outside above the entrance. The publication of BLAST could not have come at a worse time, as in August 1914 Britain declared war on Germany. There would be little appetite for avant-garde art at this time of national and international crisis; however, a ‘Vorticist Exhibition’ went ahead at

1890-610: The Grafton Galleries in Mayfair , which included work by the likes of Gauguin , Matisse and Van Gogh , where he was said to be particularly interested in the paintings of Paul Cézanne . During the summer of 1911, Grant was invited by Roger Fry to contribute to the redecoration of the dining room at the Borough Polytechnic (now London South Bank University ). Grant composed two oil paintings to fit with

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1980-587: The National Portrait Gallery, London . Keynes became an important patron of Roberts through the London Artists' Association, and the paintings that Keynes purchased are now in the collection of King's College, Cambridge . While Roberts was critical of the financial support that he received from the London Artists' Association, it is difficult to imagine how the family would have survived without this patronage. Later he would describe

2070-609: The Second World War – although Roberts did carry out some commissions as a war artist. Roberts is probably best remembered for the large, complex and colourful compositions that he exhibited annually at the Royal Academy summer exhibition from the 1950s until his death. He had a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1965, and was elected a full member of the Royal Academy in 1966. There has recently been

2160-596: The "Vortex Pamphlets" debacle. A major retrospective of his work, organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain and curated by Ronald Alley, opened at the Tate Gallery in 1965, and a smaller version was also shown in Newcastle and Manchester . In the same year Roberts was offered, but rejected, an OBE . He was, however, pleased to be elected a full member of the Royal Academy in 1966. While still tackling

2250-460: The 'Vorticist' group – Dismorr, Etchells, Hamilton, Lewis, Roberts and Wadsworth – and they were joined by the sculptor Frank Dobson (sculptor) , the painter Charles Ginner , the American graphic designer Edward McKnight Kauffer , and the painter John Turnbull. The exhibition was mainly seen as a failure to 'rekindle a flame of adventure'. The disruption of war and the subsequent mobilisation of

2340-595: The 50-piece Famous Women Dinner Service at Charleston, commissioned by the art historian and museum director Kenneth Clark . In 1935, Grant was selected along with nearly 30 other prominent British artists of the day to provide works of art for the RMS Queen Mary then being built in Scotland. Grant was commissioned to provide paintings and fabrics for the first class Main Lounge. In early 1936, after his work

2430-465: The Atlantic, and Quinn took on the entire exhibition costs. Quinn had already selected works that he was interested in buying, but after the exhibition, as no works had sold, he eventually purchased most of the larger items. There was almost no opportunity for the rebel artists to work creatively while on active service. However, Wadsworth, unexpectedly, was able to pursue his artistic interests through

2520-520: The Canadian war experience for a projected memorial hall in Ottawa. The artists were warned that only 'representative' work would be acceptable, and indeed Bomberg's first version of his Sappers at Work was rejected as being 'too cubist'. Despite these restrictions, the extraordinary canvases feel uncompromisingly modernist, and certainly drew from pre-war avant-garde practices. In the post-war years it

2610-681: The Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Nottingham). After leaving Omega he was taken up by Wyndham Lewis , who was forming a British alternative to Futurism . Ezra Pound had suggested the name Vorticism , and Roberts's work was featured in both editions of the Vorticist literary magazine BLAST . Roberts was a signatory to the Vorticist Manifesto that appeared in the first edition of the magazine. Roberts himself preferred

2700-638: The Desert (1952) and The Birth of Venus (1954) dominated the walls of the RA and were a talking point in the press and with the public. Roberts now had a new patron – Ernest Cooper, who ran a chain of health-food shops under the banner of the London Health Centre . As well as purchasing a large number of these Royal Academy paintings, Cooper commissioned Roberts to design illustrations for his mail-order catalogues and instructional pamphlets. In 1956

2790-603: The Dieudonné Hotel in the St James's area of London on 15 July 1914. The magazine was mainly the work of Lewis, but also included extensive written pieces by Ford Madox Hueffer and Rebecca West , as well as poetry by Pound, articles by Gaudier-Brzeska and Wadsworth, and reproductions of paintings by Lewis, Wadsworth, Etchells, Roberts, Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska and Hamilton. The manifesto was apparently 'signed' by eleven signatories. Lewis, Pound and Gaudier-Brzeska were at

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2880-589: The Doré Galleries in New Bond Street the following year. The forty-nine ‘Vorticist’ works by Dismorr, Etchells, Gaudier-Brzeska, Lewis, Roberts, Saunders and Wadsworth showed a commitment to hard-edged, highly coloured, near-abstract work. Perhaps by way of contrast (or comparison), Lewis also invited other artists including Bomberg and Nevinson to participate. A catalogue foreword by Lewis clarified that ‘by Vorticism we mean (a) ACTIVITY as opposed to

2970-568: The Future!: Vorticism in Britain 1910–1920' explored the links between Vorticism and Futurism, and a major exhibition 'The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World' in 2010–11 brought Vorticist work to Italy for the first time and to America for the first time since 1917, as well as appearing in London. The curators, Mark Antliff and Vivien Greene, had also traced some previously lost works (such as three paintings by Helen Saunders) that were included in

3060-670: The Hayward Gallery, London, went further in painstakingly bringing together paintings, drawings, sculpture (including a reconstruction of Epstein's Rock Drill 1913–15), Omega Workshop artefacts, photographs, journals, catalogues, letters and cartoons. Cork also included twenty-five 'Vortographs' from 1917 by the photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn that had been first displayed at the Camera Club in London in 1918. More recently, in 2004 in London and Manchester, 'Blasting

3150-812: The London Group in 1915. In 1916 Roberts enlisted in the Royal Regiment of Artillery as a gunner, serving on the Western Front in the Ypres sector, north of the Menin Road and at Arras. Having been on active service for the best part of two years, he successfully applied to the Canadian War Records Office for a commission to paint a large-scale war subject. In April 1918 he returned to London as an official war artist, with

3240-633: The National Gallery, London. Grant was introduced to Vanessa Bell (then Vanessa Stephen) by Pippa Strachey at the Friday Club in the autumn of 1905. From 1906, thanks to a gift of £100 from an aunt, Grant spent a year in Paris studying at the Académie de La Palette , Jacques-Émile Blanche 's school. During this period, he visited the Musée du Luxembourg and saw, among other paintings,

3330-628: The Park and At the Hippodrome , which were exhibited with the London Group , and The Cinema – later acquired by the Tate Gallery. At this stage his oeuvre was quite broad, including scenes from 'Greek Mythology [and] Christian Mythology', as he put it. Lawrence commissioned further illustrations and decorations for Seven Pillars of Wisdom , and there were also commissions of literary portraits and cover designs for private presses – such as

3420-563: The Rebel Art Centre. Although the Rebel Art Centre was short-lived, 'Vorticism' was given assured longevity through the dazzling typography and the audacious (and humorous) 'blasting' and 'blessing' of myriad sacred cows of English and American culture that appeared in the first issue of BLAST: The Review of the Great English Vortex , published in July 1914. BLAST was launched at a 'riotous celebratory dinner' at

3510-479: The Slade in 1911, studying under Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer . His contemporaries at the Slade included a number of brilliant young students, among them Dora Carrington , Mark Gertler , Paul Nash , Christopher Nevinson , Stanley Spencer , David Bomberg and Bernard Meninsky . The Slade's emphasis on the importance of drawing and sound structuring of composition would inform Roberts's later work. In 1912 he won

3600-561: The Slade's Melville Nettleship prize for Figure Composition. Roberts was intrigued by Post-Impressionism and Cubism , an interest fuelled by his friendships at the Slade (in particular with Bomberg) as well as by his travels in France and Italy after leaving the Slade in 1913. Later in 1913 he joined Roger Fry's Omega Workshops for three mornings a week. The ten shillings a time that Omega paid enabled him to create challenging Cubist-style paintings such as The Return of Ulysses (now owned by

3690-408: The Tate Gallery held an exhibition entitled Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism , with 150 works by Lewis and a small selection by other artists to give "an indication of the effect of his immediate impact upon his contemporaries". Roberts was offended that the catalogue "would lead the uninitiated to suppose that the artists designated as 'Other Vorticists' are in some way subservient to Lewis", and published

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3780-577: The artists contributed to a situation whereby many of the larger Vorticist paintings were lost. An anecdote recorded by Brigid Peppin relates how Helen Saunders's sister used a Vorticist oil to cover her larder floor and '[it was] worn to destruction' – an extreme example of how the paintings were not appreciated. When John Quinn died, in 1927, his collection of Vorticist works was auctioned and dissipated to now untraceable purchasers, presumably in America. Writing in 1974, Richard Cork noted that 'thirty-eight of

3870-561: The churchyard of St Peter's Church, West Firle , East Sussex. William Roberts (painter) William Patrick Roberts RA (5 June 1895 – 20 January 1980) was a British artist. In the years before the First World War Roberts was a pioneer, among English artists, in his use of abstract images. In later years he described his approach as that of an "English Cubist". In the First World War he served as

3960-443: The collection has been saved, with 117 of these works having been allocated to the Tate in lieu of inheritance tax , and the Tate continuing to house the remainder until the period when claims may be made on the estate has expired, when they too will enter the Tate collection. A number of the drawings allocated to the Tate went on display at Tate Britain in 2012–13. In 2004 William Roberts: An English Cubist by Andrew Gibbon Williams,

4050-563: The decoration of Madame Strindberg 's notorious cabaret theatre club The Cave of the Golden Calf . Lewis and his Omega Workshop colleagues Etchells, Hamilton and Wadsworth exhibited together later in the year at Brighton with Epstein and David Bomberg . Lewis curated the exhibition's 'Cubist Room' and provided a written introduction in which he attempted to cohere the various strands of abstraction on display: 'These painters are not accidently [ sic ? ] associated here, but form

4140-519: The description "Cubist" for his work of this period. Two large-scale oil paintings exhibited in the 1917 Penguin Club Vorticist exhibition in New York, and purchased by John Quinn , were subsequently lost, but the radical nature of Roberts's "Cubist style" is evidenced by The Toe Dancer (owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum ) and the recently rediscovered Boxers – both exhibited with

4230-402: The early 1930s and went on a cycling holiday to Brighton that apparently inspired Les Routiers . Andrew Heard suggests that Roberts may have used a French title for this work as a nod towards the work of Fernand Léger , whose "tubist" forms have some similarity to Roberts's figures. Soon after the Second World War broke out, in September 1939 William and Sarah left London for Oxford. Roberts

4320-429: The end – Donkey Rides was "pinned to his drawing board on the day on which he died [20 Jan. 1980]". Sarah Roberts died in 1992 and her and William's son, John, died two and a half years later, intestate. John had set up the family house, 14 St Mark's Crescent, as a "house museum" with a changing selection of his father's paintings on show to friends. It was estimated that there were almost 475 paintings and drawings in

4410-509: The exhibition. Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a Scottish painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets, and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group . His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major in the army, and much of his early childhood was spent in India and Burma . He was a grandson of Sir John Peter Grant , 12th Laird of Rothiemurchus, KCB, GCMG, and sometime Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Grant

4500-417: The first issue and with simple black-and-white ‘line block’ illustrations. However, compared with BLAST No. 1, that did have the advantage of providing ‘a cohesive Vorticist aesthetic’. Jessica Dismorr and Dorothy Shakespear (Ezra Pound's wife) joined a slightly broader range of artists that also included Jacob Kramer and Nevinson. Lewis's rhetoric was more cautious this time – trying to avoid being seen by

4590-399: The first of a series of collections of reproductions of his paintings, with somewhat polemical prefaces. In 1958 Roberts was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and two years later, when he turned 65, he retired from his one-day-a-week teaching position at the Central School. However, his output as an artist over the next fifteen years remained prolific. In 1961 he was given an award by

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4680-419: The five 'Vorticist Pamphlets' that he published between 1956 and 1958 was hampered by the absence of key works, but led to other self-published books by Roberts which included early studies of his abstract work. A broader survey was provided by the d'Offay Couper Gallery's 'Abstract Art in England 1913–1914' exhibition in 1969. Five years later, the exhibition 'Vorticism and Its Allies' curated by Richard Cork at

4770-442: The forty-nine works displayed by the full members of the movement at the 1915 Vorticist Exhibition are now missing.' Despite a resurgence of abstract art in Britain in the middle years of the twentieth century, the contribution of Vorticism was largely forgotten until a spat between John Rothenstein of the Tate Gallery and William Roberts blew up in the press. Rothenstein's 1956 Tate Gallery exhibition 'Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism'

4860-406: The front They rival the bitterness and social realism of the German artists Otto Dix and George Grosz . In 1978 Roberts published a memoir of his experiences at the front – 4.5 Howitzer Gunner RFA: Memories of the War to End War 1914–1918 . Roberts had met Sarah Kramer (1900–92) in 1915 through her brother Jacob Kramer , who also had studied at the Slade. Roberts had been writing to Sarah from

4950-440: The front, and shortly after the war was over they set up home together and had a son, John David Roberts (1919–95). They moved into rented rooms in Fitzrovia and were married in 1922. Roberts exhibited with Wyndham Lewis 's Group X, and Osbert Sitwell was an early patron. Alongside his dramatic Cubist work, Roberts was a talented portrait painter. He honed his skills with portraits of Sarah – she would be his model and muse for

5040-416: The house at the time of his death, and the Tate Gallery agreed to store them for safe keeping. The fate of these works was of concern when The Guardian in 2004 revealed that the Treasury Solicitor , who had control of John's estate, refused to lend to the major Roberts retrospective, curated by Andrew Heard, at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne and the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield. Since then

5130-400: The intellectual heart of the project, but Roberts's later comments suggest that most of the group were not made aware of the manifesto's contents before publication. Jacob Epstein was presumably too established to be co-opted as a signatory, and David Bomberg had threatened Lewis with legal action if his work was reproduced in BLAST and made his independence very clear through a one-man show at

5220-405: The most notable of which is an image of St Paul's Cathedral during the 1941 London Blitz as seen from the basement of a nearby bombed building. In the late 1950s Grant was commissioned to decorate the Russell Chantry of Lincoln Cathedral . Grant modelled the figure of Christ in these murals on his lover Paul Roche . The Cathedral authorities closed the Chantry in the 1960s and it was used as

5310-479: The next 60 years. In 1923, while Roberts was preparing for a one-man show at the Chenil Gallery, Chelsea, the artist Colin Gill put Roberts in touch with T. E. Lawrence , who commissioned a series of portraits for his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom . Finally shaking off his association with Wyndham Lewis, Roberts had evolved a unique and highly recognisable 'English Cubist' style. His subject matter turned to urban life in London with paintings such as Bank Holiday in

5400-408: The originality of his mind. Through Strachey, Grant became involved in the Bloomsbury Group, where he made many such great friends including Vanessa Bell . He would eventually live with Vanessa Bell who, though she was a married woman, fell deeply in love with him and, one night, succeeded in seducing him; Bell very much wanted a child by Grant, and she became pregnant in the spring of 1918. Although it

5490-473: The proviso that the work should not be in the Cubist style. The outcome of the commission was The First German Gas Attack at Ypres , a powerful expressionist work that is on permanent display in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Roberts was subsequently commissioned by the British Ministry of Information , for whom he painted A Shell Dump, France (1918–19), now in the Imperial War Museum collection along with twelve watercolour drawings of his experiences at

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5580-505: The readership as unpatriotic. Understandably, he tried to strike an optimist tone with regard to the future of Vorticism and BLAST ; however, within a year most of the artists had enlisted or volunteered in the armed forces: Lewis – Royal Garrison Artillery; Roberts – Royal Field Artillery; Wadsworth – British Naval Intelligence; Bomberg – Royal Engineers; Dismorr – Voluntary Air Detachment; and Saunders – government office work. Ezra Pound had been championing Wyndham Lewis's work from 1915 with

5670-421: The rebels – and, although they were not regarded highly by the men, Brigid Peppin argues that Saunders's 'juxtapositions of strong and unexpected colour' may have influenced Lewis's later use of forceful colour. Another up-and-coming 'English Cubist' using bold, discordant colour combinations was William Roberts . Writing much later, he recalled Lewis borrowing two paintings – Religion and Dancers – to hang at

5760-409: The standard monograph on this painter, was published. Between 1998 and 2015 the William Roberts Society furthered the appreciation and promotion of Roberts's work, being established as a registered charity in 2002 and publishing regular newsletters and occasional pamphlets. English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque at 14 St Mark's Crescent in 2003. A short film William Roberts: An Artist's House

5850-408: The studio/gallery/retail outlet allowed him to employ and support artists in sympathy with this approach, such as Wyndham Lewis, Frederick Etchells , Cuthbert Hamilton and Edward Wadsworth . Lewis had made an impact at the Allied Artists' Salon the previous year with a huge virtually abstract work, Kermesse (now lost), and in the same year he had worked with the American sculptor Jacob Epstein on

5940-484: The summer, with an introduction from Simon Bussy, Grant visited Matisse himself, then living at Clamart , Paris. In November 1909, Grant moved to 21 Fitzroy Square, where he occupied two rooms on the second floor of the building on the west side of the square. A few doors away, at 29 Fitzroy Square, lived Adrian and Virginia Stephen (later Virginia Woolf ). Grant would later recall: 'a close friendship sprang up between Adrian Stephen and myself and I had only to tap on

6030-419: The supervision of the dazzle camouflage being applied to over two thousand ships, largely at Bristol and Liverpool. Towards the end of the war the journalist Paul Konody , now art adviser to the Canadian War Memorials Fund (and someone who had been blatantly anti-Vorticism), commissioned Lewis, Wadsworth, Nevinson, Bomberg, Roberts, Paul Nash and Bomberg to produce monumental canvases on subjects relating to

6120-468: The tasteful PASSIVITY of Picasso (b) SIGNIFICANCE as opposed to the dull anecdotal character to which the Naturalist is condemned (c) ESSENTIAL MOVEMENT and ACTIVITY (such as the energy of the mind) as opposed to the imitative cinematography, the fuss and hysterics of the Futurists.’ The exhibition was largely ignored by the press, and the reviews that did appear were damning. Just before the exhibition opening, news reached London of Gaudier-Brzeska's death in

6210-651: The theme of illustrating London on Holiday . Both his paintings, Football and Bathing, bear the influence of early Italian art and Byzantine mosaics. Grant also drew on his exposure to the work of the post-impressionists; The Times reported of his depiction of the figures that 'Mr Grant has used all his remarkable powers of draughtsmanship to represent the act of swimming rather than any individual swimmers.’ In February 1910, Grant, along with Horace de Vere Cole , Virginia Stephen , Adrian Stephen and others, disguised themselves as an Abyssinian royal delegation and fooled their way on to HMS Dreadnought . The delegation

6300-408: The thirties as "the years of economic struggle". A number of striking large-scale canvases were undertaken in the early thirties, such as The Masks (1934) and The Playground (The Gutter) (1934–5), both works being exhibited at the Carnegie Institute , Pittsburgh, and in New York. Despite their financial position the family occasionally took holidays: they travelled to Spain for the first time in

6390-415: The trenches in France. A ‘Notice to Public’ in the second number of BLAST explained that the publication had been delayed ‘due to the War chiefly’ and to ‘the illness of the Editor at the time it should have appeared and before’, and the delay allowed the last-minute inclusion of a tribute to the artist. Compared with BLAST No. 1 this was a scaled-back production – 102 pages, rather than the 158 pages of

6480-454: The twenties his work became less down-beat. For example, The Tea Garden (1928) and The Chess Players (1929) provide a light take on social interaction and were perfectly in tune with the fashionable Art Deco style. In the 1930s the angular style of Roberts's earlier work was replaced by a rounder, more sculptural approach. This change in style is, for example, apparent in the double portrait of John Maynard Keynes and Lydia Lopokova in

6570-531: The war years in a flat in Marston on the outskirts of Oxford. Roberts managed to get a one-day-a-week teaching job at Oxford Technical College. Throughout his life he drew inspiration from his surroundings, and a number of watercolour drawings from this period show rural scenes on the River Cherwell and a nearby Gypsy camp. In 1946 he and Sarah returned to London and took a room at 14 St Mark's Crescent,

6660-544: The window to be let in. The maid told Virginia "that Mr Grant gets in everywhere". But very irregular as my visits were, they became more and more a habit, and I think they soon became frequent enough to escape notice.' In June 1910 Grant exhibited with the Friday Club at the Alpine Club Gallery. Later that year Grant would visit Roger Fry 's Manet and the Post-Impressionists exhibition at

6750-399: Was a 'parallel movement to Cubism and Expressionism ' and would, the advertisement promised, be a 'Death Blow to Impressionism and Futurism '. Ezra Pound had introduced the concept of 'the vortex' in relation to modernist poetry and art early on in 1914. At its most obvious, for example, London could be seen to be a 'vortex' of intellectual and artistic activity. However, for Pound there

6840-577: Was a homosexual with bisexual leanings". In Grant's later years, his lover, the poet Paul Roche (1916–2007), whom he had known since 1946, took care of him and enabled Grant to maintain his accustomed way of life at Charleston for many years. Grant and Roche's relationship was strong and lasted even during Roche's marriage and five children he had by the late 1950s. Roche was made co-heir of Grant's estate. Grant eventually died in Roche's home in 1978. Duncan Grant's remains are buried beside Vanessa Bell's in

6930-432: Was a more specific – if obscure – meaning: '[The vortex was] that point in the cyclone where energy cuts into space and imparts form to it ... the pattern of angles and geometric lines which is formed by our vortex in the existing chaos.' Lewis saw the potential of 'Vorticism' as an exciting rallying call that was also sufficiently vague, he hoped, to embrace the individualism of the rebel artists. Lewis's Vorticist manifesto

7020-438: Was actually a Lewis retrospective with very few Vorticist works. And the inclusion of work by Bomberg, Roberts, Wadsworth, Nevinson, Dobson, Kramer under the heading 'Other Vorticists' – together with Lewis's assertion that 'Vorticism, in fact, was what I, personally, did, and said, at a certain period' – incensed Roberts as it seemed that he and the others were being set up to be mere disciples of Lewis. The case made by Roberts in

7110-784: Was born on 21 January 1885, to Major Bartle Grant and Ethel Isabel McNeil in Rothiemurchus , Aviemore , Scotland. Between 1887 and 1894, the family lived in India and Burma, returning to Scotland every two years. During this period, Grant was educated by his governess, Alice Bates. Along with Rupert Brooke , Grant attended Hillbrow School , Rugby, 1894–99, where he received lessons from an art teacher and became interested in Japanese prints. During this period, Grant spent his school holidays at Hogarth House, Chiswick, with his grandmother, Lady Grant. He attended St Paul's School, London (as

7200-643: Was born. Angelica grew up believing that Vanessa's husband Clive Bell was her biological father; she bore his surname and his behaviour toward her never indicated otherwise. Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell had formed an open relationship , although she herself apparently never had any further affairs. Duncan, in contrast, had many physical affairs and several serious relationships with other men, most notably David Garnett , who would one day marry Angelica and have four daughters with her, including Amaryllis Garnett . Grant's love and respect for Bell, however, kept him with her until her death in 1961. Angelica wrote: "(Grant)

7290-484: Was difficult for artists to receive patronage and to secure sales. Nevertheless, Lewis, Wadsworth, Roberts and Atkinson all had one-man shows by the early 1920s – each artist navigating his own path between modernism and potentially more saleable recognisable subjects. Lewis organised one more group show, in 1920 at the Mansard Gallery, bringing together ten artists under the banner ' Group X '. Now, however, there

7380-427: Was encouraged by his parents and by his school teachers. He left school at the age of 14 and took up an apprenticeship with the advertising firm of Sir Joseph Causton Ltd, intending to become a poster designer. He attended evening classes at Saint Martin's School of Art in London and won a London County Council scholarship to the Slade School of Art – freeing him from the obligations of his apprenticeship. He joined

7470-460: Was enrolled by his aunt at Westminster School of Art ; he attended for the next three years. While at Westminster, Grant was encouraged in his studies by Simon Bussy , a French painter and lifelong friend of Matisse , who went on to marry Dorothy Strachey . In the winter of 1904–5, Grant visited Italy where, commissioned by Harry Strachey , he made copies of part of the Masaccio frescoes in

7560-518: Was greeted by a band and given a tour of the battleship. As flag ship of the Home Fleet, the Dreadnought was a high-profile target for the pranksters, and as such the hoax attracted much attention in the press once discovered. Grant is best known for his painting style, which developed in the wake of French post-impressionist exhibitions mounted in London in 1910. He often worked with, and

7650-630: Was influenced by, another member of the group, art critic and artist Roger Fry. As well as painting landscapes and portraits , Fry designed textiles and ceramics. After Fry founded the Omega Workshops in 1913, Grant became co-director with Vanessa Bell , who was then involved with Fry. Although Grant had always been actively homosexual, a relationship with Vanessa blossomed, which was both creative and personal, and he eventually moved in with her and her two sons by her husband Clive Bell . In 1916, in support of his application for recognition as

7740-540: Was installed in the Lounge, directors from the Cunard Line made a walk-through inspection of the ship. When they saw what Grant had created, they immediately rejected his works and ordered it removed. Grant is quoted in the book The Mary: The Inevitable Ship , by Potter and Frost, as saying: During World War Two, Grant received a short-term commission from the War Artists' Advisory Committee for two paintings,

7830-464: Was little attempt to unify the artists's contributions beyond Lewis's belief that 'the experiments [by artists] undertaken all over Europe during the last ten years should .... not be lightly abandoned.' The diversity of styles on display, for example, included four self-portraits by Lewis, while Roberts exhibited four quite radical works in his evolving 'Cubist' style. Six of the Group X artists had been in

7920-699: Was now being described as 'Futurist' – including the work of the English Cubists. When Marinetti and the English Futurist C. R. W. Nevinson published a manifesto of 'Vital English Art', giving the Rebel Art Centre as an address, it seemed like an attempted takeover. A few weeks later, Lewis took out an advertisement in The Spectator to announce the publication of 'The Manifesto of the Vorticists' – an English abstract art movement that

8010-490: Was to be published in a new literary and art journal, BLAST – ironically, the journal's title had been suggested by Nevinson, who was now persona non grata since the 'Vital English Art' manifesto. The French sculptor, painter and anarchist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska had met Ezra Pound in July 1913, and their ideas on 'The New Sculpture' developed into a theory of Vorticist sculpture. Two artists, Helen Saunders and Jessica Dismorr , who had turned to 'cubist works' in 1913, joined

8100-535: Was too old for combat service, but enquired about the possibility of getting 'some pictorial propaganda work to do'. He was frustrated at being offered only minor assignments for the War Artists' Advisory Committee . However, he did complete two commissions documenting life on the home front – Munitions Factory (1940) and The Control Room, Civil Defence Headquarters (1942) – both now in Salford Art Gallery. William and Sarah eventually spent most of

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