CRW Nevinson

Born in London, Nevinson attended the St. John's Wood School of Art and then the Slade (1908/12). In the pre-war years Nevinson spend much time in Paris, where he shared a studio with Modigliani and studied the work of the Cubists 'there was a desire in me,' he wrote, 'to reach that dignity which can be conveyed pictorially by the abstract rather than the particular.' Back in London he was a founder member of the London Group and became actively involved with the Rebel Art Centre. Nevinson had been profoundly stirred by the Futurist Show at the Sackville Gallery in 1912 and became associated with Severini and his circle. He produces a number of fragmented, futurist inspired urban works and in 1914 issued the 'Vital English Art. Futurist Manifesto' with Marinetti. 'HURRAH for motors! Hurrah for Speed!' trumpeted the manifesto, as it called upon the public to cast off ' the pretty pretty..., the sickly revivals of medievalism...and other passéist filth' and 'to support, defend and glorify the great Futurist painters... and advance forces of Vital English Art.' In 1914, Nevinson left the front line of art for the battlefields in France. He joined the Red Cross and was horrified by what he saw, his harsh angular war paintings grimly conveying the terrible ritual of war. Appointed an Official War Artist, his paintings seemed no longer to glory in the Machine Age, but captured the sense that 'in war man behaves like a machine... an item in a great instrument of destruction.'

After the war, Nevinson returned to urban subjects. He visited Paris and New York and became a member of the New English Art Club, the Royal Society and was appointed A.R.A. in 1939.

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