| Paul Edwards: |
| Wyndham Lewis Portraits |
|---|
| “Mr Wyndham Lewis a a Tyro” Oil on canvas 440 x 730 mm (17 1/2'' x 28 1/2''), Ferens Art Gallery, Hull City Museums and Art Galley. |
| Lewis’s best-known self-portrait is a striking example of his use of portraiture to project a chosen identity rather than to reveal a 'self.' The title shows it to be at two removes from such a self. — ‘Mr. Wyndham Lewis’ refers to the public figure known as an avant-garde painter and novelist, while this figure is presented ‘as a Tyro.’ The grin of the Tyro can be seen as kind of hysterical continuation into peacetime of the ‘keep smiling’ attitude instilled into the British Tommy in the First World War. With the war apparently forgotten, ‘Mr. Wyndham Lewis’ faces the future with this brave British Grin, but the sour and sickly colouring of the image hints that the terrible past is not so easily repressed. |
| click image to close window |