Author Description

In this study of the artist, writer and polymath Wyndham Lewis, Normand offers a close analysis of the complex world which Lewis's paintings inhabit. The author adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine the relationship between Lewis's philosophical and social commentary, his political attitudes and his concerns in the visual arts. Beginning with his early career at the Slade School of Art, and his association with Augustus John, the text traces Lewis's emerging commitment to a 'classical' modernism, and goes on the explore the implications of his political associations with Oswald Moseley and British fascism. Without offering a reductivist view of the relationship between art and politics, Normand argues for a close correspondence between Lewis's political affiliations and both the form and content of his painting.