Rebel Art Centre

Although a short-lived affair, the Rebel Art Centre which was started by Wyndham Lewis in March 1914 lefts its mark on the development of Futurism in England. Ever the rebel Lewis decided that the place should be a radical meeting venue for equally radical artists of the day to discuss avant-garde ideas and to teach non-representational art. By the summer of its inaugural year, the Centre which rented premises at 38 Great Ormond Street, London, had closed due to its own internal arguments and disagreements and Lechmere withdrew her financial support. Yet, in those few short months, it had managed to stage not only a sculpture exhibition by inordinately gifted Henri Gaudier-Brzeska who was to be killed in World War I, but a lecture by the poet and writer Ezra Pound who coined the word Vorticism.

Wyndham Lewis' idea was to establish a society in direct opposition to Roger Fry's Omega Workshop. The Centre's associates included Malcolm Arbuthnot, Lawrence Atkinson, David Bomberg, Jessica Dismorr, Jacob Epstein, Frederick Etchells, Cuthbert Hamilton, William Roberts, Helen Saunders, Dorothy Shakespear, Edward Wadsworth and the painter Kate Lechmere. Practising a particularly confrontational form of Futurism which soon became known as Vorticism, the building featured murals painted by Lewis with Nevinson contributing screens design. It was also the centre for the development and publication of the controversial Lewis magazine Blast which was launched with the financial assistance of Lechmere.

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