A Battery Shelled - Percy Wyndham Lewis - Framed art Print

Percy Wyndham Lewis, the Canadian-born English artist and author (1882-1957), is well known for his exceptional drawing skills, refined at the Slade School in London. From 1898 to 1901, he immersed himself in studies, later spending seven years traversing Europe, often in Paris with Augustus John. Unfortunately, the majority of his early oeuvre did not survive.

Returning to England, Lewis' art started to embody Cubist and Futurist elements, which catapulted him into Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912. His brief tenure at Fry's Omega Workshops ended in 1913, and soon after, in 1914, he established the Rebel Art Centre. This marked the birth of his Vorticist movement, a style which featured semi-abstract, angular works infused with a fascination for machinery's impersonality and energy.

During his years with the Vorticists, Lewis co-founded and edited the Vorticist journal, Blast, with Ezra Pound and Gaudier-Brzeska. The Canadian-born artist also served his home country as an official war artist during both World Wars. His later work humanised Vorticism, maintaining its stark, jagged aesthetic. As he lost his sight in 1953, Lewis turned to writing, earning a name for himself through his satirical novels.