Exhibitions

Here I list the important exhibitions that took place before, during and after the Vorticist epoch.

Manet and the Post-Impressionists

Organised by Roger Fry (who was also proprietor of the Omega Workshop where Lewis , Wadsworth and Roberts worked in 1913).

This exhibition was important in introducing the recent French developments to an eager British public. It was interestingly titled Post Impressionist, which would have helped to hammer home the fact that Impressionism itself was history, and art had meanwhile moved on. Judging by the popularity of John Singer Sargeant, Walter Sickert and other British based painters, this fact had escaped notice, or had just been ignored. So this exhibition acted as an important wake-up call for London.

This exhibition attracted more visitors than anticipated.

Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition

Oganised as before by Roger Fry

Owing to the huge success of the first Post-Impressionist exhibition, Fry decided to follow it up with a second one, where a more varied collection was exhibited. British, French and Russian artists were represented.

Camera Portraits - Malcolm Arbuthnot

A one man show by Malcolm Arbuthnot.

1912 Allied Artists Exhibition

The Allied Artists fifth exhibition.

Post-Impressionist Exhibition

This exhibition was organised by the then photographer Malcolm Arbuthnot. At the time he was the manager of Kodak's Liverpool Branch. It was principally through this exhibition that he came into contact with Wyndham Lewis and the advance guard of British Art

Futurists' Exhibition

Another early appearance of the Italian movement's art in London.

1913 Allied Artists Exhibition

The sixth exhibition of the Allied Artists.

Post-Impressionism and Futurist Exhibition

Organised by Frank Rutter.

CRW Nevinson's Departure of the Train De Luxe (c.1913) was included in this exhibition(Cork - Vorticism and its Allies). Nevinson was a disciple of Marinetti's Futurist movement.

Jacob Epstein Exhibition

This one-man show put Epstein at the forefront of the now busy British avant-garde artistic landscape. Note that Epstein, like Bomberg, was careful to avoid any artistic allegiances. He is sometimes described as Vorticist, but he was more of an ally. Note that his famous work, the Rock Drill was not exhibited here - this was first shown in 1915, though Epstein had quite possibly finished it by this time (see Cork's The Rock Drill Period).

Camden Town Group and Others

This exhibition had a 'Cubist Room' wherein was hung Lewis's Kermesse (1913); a painting that is unfortunately no longer extant. Frustratingly, we don't even possess a photograph of it, which is a real tragedy as Kermesse is referred to in many reviews, and seems to have been a very influential work on the public, and other artists. Cork's opus has many accounts of the picture from the time, but its exact nature remains a tantalising mystery.

Other proto-Vorticist works were hung in this room including Bomberg's Study for Ezekiel, a work that demonstrated Bomberg as being on a parallel path to Lewis.

Friday Club Exhibition

London Group Exhibition

The groups' first exhibition. Bomberg was a founder member. It was a broad-based group with modernist leanings, but not with the accompanying manifestos etc that Futurism or Vorticism had.

Twentieth Century Art Exhibition

Allied Artists Salon

Bomberg

Celebrated as the exhibition in which he hung The Mud Bath OUTSIDE in the wind and rain! This really was taking modern art to the street. Note that both Bomberg and Epstein shied from associating fully with the Vorticist group, and both had one-man shows.

London Group Exhibition

It was here that Epsteins' Rock Drill was exhibited for the first time. In Richard Cork's slim volume, Jacob Epstein - The Rock Drill Period, we discover that Epstein's celebrated masterpiece had a complex and tortured history, with its creator being essentially dissatisfied with it in its various forms. Fortuitously, it is still with us and can be seen at the the Tate Modern, but in a much emasculated form. Originally, this piece comprised of a modernistic, brooding automaton astride a rock drill of the type used in mining. Cork dates the Rock Drill at "c. 1913", so it could have been in existence for two years before this appearance. This work may have been the first British piece that was integrated with a 'ready- made' pience of hardware; Duchamp had astounded Parisian gallery visitors with his Bicycle Wheel ready-made in 1913.

When the public saw the Rock Drill here at the Goupil, it made a similar impact, though for visitors, it connected most immediately to the horrors of the trenches: the War had been going for eight months now. The drill operator, a shielded, warriorlike being, could have been readying a terrible Machine of War: the Daily Mail in fact printed a large picture of it, calling it "Epsteim's Vision of War".

Vorticist Exhibition

Over a year after the original formation of the Vorticist group, its first formal exhibition. By now, with the First World War raging in the background, much of the impact of their art had dissipated. However, the exhibition was comprehensive, with all major Vorticists taking part.

Those exhibiting in the 'Invited to Show' section included Lawrence Atkinson.

London Group Exhibition

Amongst those exhibiting included Lawrence Atkinson.

Nevinson

Nevinson was the third ally of Vorticism to have his one-man show (the other two being Bomberg and Epstein). He was happy to be a British Futurist (the only one?), yet his art was uncompromisingly modernist in appearance; his vision was the easily the equal of his continental brethren, and in some respects, more advanced. This exhibition showed some of his wartime paintings, which were deeply thoughtful, and emotional. Nevinson had seen terrible things, and he tried to instil these images with the searingly awful experiences he had only recently witnessed. Note that Nevinson never signed up as a Vorticist, but was still on good terms with the Vorticists. Good-natured rivalry could be the description of his relationship with the Vorticists.

This relationship was personified by the events at the Futurist evening at the Lyceum some time in 1914. The Vorticists went in force; they wanted to register their displeasure. Vocal from the start, the group kept up the bombardment throughout the evening; it rose to a tumult as Gaudier Brzeska rose, shouting French insults at the top of his voice every time Nevinson banged the bug base drum in the wings during Marinetti's rendition of his classic wartime piece, Zang Tumb Tumb. The Futurists would have enjoyed this kind of protracted engagement, making it a happy night of aesthetic conflict with the heretic Vorticists. Marinetti was constantly trying to win the Vorticists over to Futurism.

Vorticist Exhibition

This was the second Vorticist exhibition. Several of the pieces had been in the first exhibition. Many pieces were bought by the American collector Quinn, including Lewis's Workshop. This piece is now in the The Tate Modern. It had been found in the 1960's in a Baltimore antique shop. This was a fortunate find, as it is a sad fact that the Vorticists were not widely appreciated at this time, and much of their work has been lost. However, is possible that more such relics could one day resurface.

Epstein

This was Epstein's second one-man show, at the venue where Nevinson had held his.

Gaudier-Brzeska Memorial Exhibition

This member of the Vorticist group had been killed in 1915 fighting with the French army at Neuve-Chappelle, and this exhibition was a fitting memorial to his work. It was Gaudier-Brzeska who had lived and worked in a railway arch in Putney. Lewis had already written a touching obituary in Blast 2.

Wadsworth

Edward Wadsworth was an accomplished Vorticist, who was able to paint the largest Vorticist works yet seen, in his role as a Naval 'dazzle-camouflage' designer. Much work at this exhibition stemmed from Naval subjects. His work as a woodcut artist was also much in evidence here.

Abstract Sculpture and Painting by Atkinson

Atkinson was a signatory to Blast and was an established Vorticist.