Percy Wyndham Lewis, (British, 1882-1957)
Two Figures in a Restaurant
Two Figures in a Restaurant
pen and ink and watercolour on paper
11 x 18cm (4 5/16 x 7 1/16in).
with a further sketch in pen and ink and chalk to the reverse, by the same hand
Executed circa 1909
Provenance
Agnes Bedford, and thence by family descent
Private Collection, U.K.
The concert pianist Agnes Bedford (1892-1969) was a friend and collaborator of Ezra Pound, and also a very close friend of Wyndham Lewis, especially in the years after he went blind (1951-7). Bedford would read to him, and also assisted him by transcribing some of his writing. She owned a number of works by the Artist, and loaned five of these to the Tate's 1956 exhibition Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism.
The style of the present lot is closely related to two drawings in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Theatre Manager and, to a lesser extent, Anthony, both executed in 1909. In the present lot, the sitters in both sketches are unknown, and indeed given their similarity to each other Paul Edwards has suggested that they may be intended as 'doubles'. At the time, Lewis was working on the first draft of his novel Tarr, which illustrates his interest in the concept of the double during this period: his main reference-point was Dostoyevsky's novella The Double (1846).
The Theatre Manager has been characterised by Walter Michel as possibly 'the earliest work outside Paris to show a knowledge of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon' (W. Michel, Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings, Thames and Hudson, London, 1971, p. 48), though Lewis can only have known of the painting through Augustus John's reports.
The present lot shows the Artist experimenting with a variety of 'primitivism' that was proto-cubist. Despite the ephemeral support used - the sketches are executed on both sides of a throwaway receipt - the present lot is an intriguing and important piece showing the influence and development of Cubism in British art.
We are grateful to Paul Edwards for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
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Two Figures in a Restaurant
Two Figures in a Restaurant
pen and ink and watercolour on paper
11 x 18cm (4 5/16 x 7 1/16in).
with a further sketch in pen and ink and chalk to the reverse, by the same hand
Executed circa 1909
Provenance
Agnes Bedford, and thence by family descent
Private Collection, U.K.
The concert pianist Agnes Bedford (1892-1969) was a friend and collaborator of Ezra Pound, and also a very close friend of Wyndham Lewis, especially in the years after he went blind (1951-7). Bedford would read to him, and also assisted him by transcribing some of his writing. She owned a number of works by the Artist, and loaned five of these to the Tate's 1956 exhibition Wyndham Lewis and Vorticism.
The style of the present lot is closely related to two drawings in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Theatre Manager and, to a lesser extent, Anthony, both executed in 1909. In the present lot, the sitters in both sketches are unknown, and indeed given their similarity to each other Paul Edwards has suggested that they may be intended as 'doubles'. At the time, Lewis was working on the first draft of his novel Tarr, which illustrates his interest in the concept of the double during this period: his main reference-point was Dostoyevsky's novella The Double (1846).
The Theatre Manager has been characterised by Walter Michel as possibly 'the earliest work outside Paris to show a knowledge of Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon' (W. Michel, Wyndham Lewis: Paintings and Drawings, Thames and Hudson, London, 1971, p. 48), though Lewis can only have known of the painting through Augustus John's reports.
The present lot shows the Artist experimenting with a variety of 'primitivism' that was proto-cubist. Despite the ephemeral support used - the sketches are executed on both sides of a throwaway receipt - the present lot is an intriguing and important piece showing the influence and development of Cubism in British art.
We are grateful to Paul Edwards for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Sale price
Estimate
Time, Location
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