Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)

This is the first exhibition on Wyndham Lewis (Amherst, Nova Scotia, 1882 - London, 1957) presented in Spain and the most comprehensive show since the retrospective exhibition organised by the Tate Gallery in 1956, one year before his death. Over 150 artworks and 60 publications by himself offer a complete survey of the artistic and literary output of this multifaceted and controversial artist who was one of the key figures within international modernism of the first half of the 20th century. In 1914 Lewis founded Vorticism, the only British avant-garde art movement, and was also a pioneer of abstraction, a war painter, a great portraitist (whose sitters included celebrated contemporary authors such as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Rebecca West, among others), a novelist, essayist, publisher and editor, and a literary and art critic. Lewis founded journals such as Blast and The Enemy and could aptly be described as a "single-handed avant-garde movement", as well as "the most fascinating personality of our times", as T. S. Eliot wrote in 1913. In short, a fascinating artist as yet undiscovered by the general public.The present exhibition has been organised by the Fundacion Juan March with the collaboration of Paul Edwards, the invited curator and leading international expert on Wyndham Lewis, with the assistance of other specialists on Lewis including Richard Humphreys, Alan Munton and Yolanda Morato, among others.