Head of Ezra Pound

Details

Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)
Head of Ezra Pound
signed with initials 'WL.' (lower right)
black crayon on buff paper
11 5/8 x 8 7/8 in. (29.5 x 22.5 cm.)
Executed in 1939.

Provenance

A gift from the artist to D.G. Bridson, London, in 1956, and by descent.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 5 June 1992, no. 63A, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

W. Michel, Wyndham Lewis Paintings and Drawings, London, 1971, no. 937, pl. 130.
S. Cooney (ed.), Blast 3, previously unpublished letters by Ezra Pound, Santa Barbara, 1984, p. 59, illustrated.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

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Lot Essay

Ezra Pound revisited London from Rapallo in 1938–39 in order to wind up the estate of his wife’s mother, Olivia Shakespear. He and Wyndham Lewis were old friends, having been leaders of the Vorticist movement in 1914, collaborating on the magazine, Blast. In 1938 Lewis won notoriety again when his oil portrait of their mutual friend T.S. Eliot was rejected by the Royal Academy hanging committee amid much controversy. The current drawing is one of a series of four heads of Pound drawn in preparation for the major oil portrait of Pound painted in 1939, now in the Tate Gallery. Its assured, improvisatorial character is reflected in the informality of the oil portrait itself. The former owner, D.G. Bridson, was a BBC Radio producer friendly with both Pound and Lewis. He dramatised several of Lewis’s novels for the Third Programme, and secured a commission for the now blind Lewis to complete his most ambitious work of fiction, The Childermass. Bridson dramatised the continuation, which was broadcast to great acclaim before publication in 1956. In gratitude, Lewis gave him the drawing.

We are very grateful to Professor Paul Edwards for preparing this catalogue entry.

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