Red and Black Principle
Wyndham LEWIS
(British, 1882-1957)
Red and Black Principle
Date1936
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 46 × 24 in. (116.8 × 61 cm)
frame: 56 1/2 × 34 1/2 × 3 3/8 in. (143.5 × 87.6 × 8.6 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Wright S. Ludington
Object number1956.2.1
Subject(s)
- figure
- figures (representations)
Collection
- 20th century European
- European
Sub-Collection(s)
- British
On View
On viewCollections
Label TextLewis was a painter, writer, and polemicist--his background gives some clue to the restlessness and pugnacity that was to mark much of his life. Born on a yacht off Amherst, Nova Scotia, he was the son of a British mother and American father, who had fought on the Unionist side in the Civil War and been captured by the Confederate Army at the Battle of Wilderness. In 1888, his family moved to England where the father abandoned them five years later. Lewis studied at the Slade School and later at the Académie Julian in Paris. A natural rebel, he quickly allied himself with the Italian Futurist painter Marinetti and the Rebel Art Centre in London, publishing the Vorticist manifesto "BLAST" in 1914. A number of his works of the mid-1930s reflect concerns related to the Spanish Civil War during which, like his friend Ezra Pound, he was a firm supporter of General Franco's regime.