Jessica Dismorr
Encyclopedia
Jessica Dismorr was an English
painter and illustrator and one of only two women members of the Vorticist
movement.
, England
, and moved with her family to Hampstead
in the 1890s. Her father was a rich businessman, as a consequence of which she was free of financial worries.
She attended the Slade School of Art, 1902–03, before training under Max Bohm at Etaples, and at the Académie de la Palette in Paris, 1910–13, where she studied with Jean Metzinger
and was in the circle around the Scottish Colourist
, John Duncan Fergusson
. In 1911, she contributed several illustrations to Rhythm magazine.
's second Post-Impressionist show, in which they were not included.
In 1912 and 1913, she exhibited Fauvist
influenced work in the Allied Artist's Association. An influence said to have resulted from her studies at La Palette.
in 1913. Robin Ody, a close friend and the executor of her will (in which all the beneficiaries were women), summed her up as "the Edwardian phenomenon of the new woman". She maintained a studio in the King's Road
, Chelsea, London
, as well as taking frequent trips to France. She also essayed into sexual freedom. Ody considered that she did not have a physical relationship with Lewis, one of the main reasons being her inclination towards her own gender. According to one of Lewis's lovers, Kate Lechmere, Dismorr had a difficult love affair with Wyndham Lewis, and was, along with fellow artist Helen Saunders
, one of the "little lapdogs who wanted to be Lewis’s slaves and do everything for him". Lechmere gives this as the reason for Dismorr stripping naked in the middle of Oxford Street on one occasion.
In fact Saunders had twice turned down proposals from Walter Sickert
, and in later life said that she thought it was not to the woman's advantage when two artists married, as she would inevitably relegate her own artistic needs below those of her husband's.
It must also be borne in mind that Lechmere's relationship with Lewis had ended bitterly, and she carried out a legal struggle to recover money owed her by him. Lechmere had provided all the funds to pay for the Rebel Art Centre, where the Vorticists first met in 1914—a fact which Lewis had to admit to Christopher Nevinson who had not wanted "any of these damned women" in the group.
, BLAST in 1914. She shared the group's depiction of the dynamics of the machine, but little of her work from this period survives. Apart from her, the only other female member of the group was Helen Saunders
. William Roberts's painting The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring 1915, from 1961–62, shows the seven males dominating the foreground and the two women behind (Dismorr in the doorway being the furthest away).
She exhibited with the Vorticists again in New York in January 1917.
she was a nurse in France and then with the American Friends Service Committee. She had a nervous breakdown in 1920 following her war experiences. She received medical advice not to paint, but Lewis suspected that it was her modern style that was causing the doctors concern, and wrote to her that "the best possible distraction for you would be to paint".
She was at the centre of the London avant-garde world, acquainted with both T. S. Eliot
and Ezra Pound
, with her poems and illustrations being published, including in the Vorticist Blast magazine. In the 1930s she did portraits of poets, including Dylan Thomas
and exhibited with Charles Ginner
and Barbara Hepworth
in the London Group
, as well as with Ivon Hitchens
and Ben Nicholson
in the Seven and Five Society
, having joined both these groups in 1926.
Dismorr committed suicide by hanging on August 29, 1939, five days before Britain declared war on Germany.
Quentin Stevenson is currently writing her biography. Catherine Heathcock's (unpublished) PhD thesis contains a complete catalogue of Dismorr's works. The letters between Dismorr and Lewis are now at Cornell University
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter and illustrator and one of only two women members of the Vorticist
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
movement.
Early life
Dismorr was born at GravesendGravesend, Kent
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and moved with her family to Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
in the 1890s. Her father was a rich businessman, as a consequence of which she was free of financial worries.
She attended the Slade School of Art, 1902–03, before training under Max Bohm at Etaples, and at the Académie de la Palette in Paris, 1910–13, where she studied with Jean Metzinger
Jean Metzinger
Jean Metzinger was a French painter.Metzinger was born in Nantes, France. Initially he was influenced by Fauvism and Impressionism, but from 1908 he was associated with Cubism. Metzinger was a member of the Section d'Or group of artists...
and was in the circle around the Scottish Colourist
Scottish Colourists
The Scottish Colourists were a group of painters from Scotland whose work was not very highly regarded when it was first exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, but which in the late 20th Century came to have a formative influence on contemporary Scottish art....
, John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson
John Duncan Fergusson was a Scottish artist, regarded as one of the major artists of the Scottish Colourists school of painting.- Early life :...
. In 1911, she contributed several illustrations to Rhythm magazine.
Early Exhibitions
Dismorr exhibited with Fergusson and S. J. Peploe in October 1912 at the Stafford Gallery, London, at the same time as Roger FryRoger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
's second Post-Impressionist show, in which they were not included.
In 1912 and 1913, she exhibited Fauvist
Fauvism
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
influenced work in the Allied Artist's Association. An influence said to have resulted from her studies at La Palette.
Relationships
She met Wyndham LewisWyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
in 1913. Robin Ody, a close friend and the executor of her will (in which all the beneficiaries were women), summed her up as "the Edwardian phenomenon of the new woman". She maintained a studio in the King's Road
Kings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...
, Chelsea, London
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, as well as taking frequent trips to France. She also essayed into sexual freedom. Ody considered that she did not have a physical relationship with Lewis, one of the main reasons being her inclination towards her own gender. According to one of Lewis's lovers, Kate Lechmere, Dismorr had a difficult love affair with Wyndham Lewis, and was, along with fellow artist Helen Saunders
Helen Saunders
Helen Saunders was an English painter.Helen Saunders was born in Bedford Park, Ealing....
, one of the "little lapdogs who wanted to be Lewis’s slaves and do everything for him". Lechmere gives this as the reason for Dismorr stripping naked in the middle of Oxford Street on one occasion.
In fact Saunders had twice turned down proposals from Walter Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
, and in later life said that she thought it was not to the woman's advantage when two artists married, as she would inevitably relegate her own artistic needs below those of her husband's.
It must also be borne in mind that Lechmere's relationship with Lewis had ended bitterly, and she carried out a legal struggle to recover money owed her by him. Lechmere had provided all the funds to pay for the Rebel Art Centre, where the Vorticists first met in 1914—a fact which Lewis had to admit to Christopher Nevinson who had not wanted "any of these damned women" in the group.
Vorticism
Dismorr was a signatory to the Vorticist manifesto published in the first issue of their literary magazineLiterary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
, BLAST in 1914. She shared the group's depiction of the dynamics of the machine, but little of her work from this period survives. Apart from her, the only other female member of the group was Helen Saunders
Helen Saunders
Helen Saunders was an English painter.Helen Saunders was born in Bedford Park, Ealing....
. William Roberts's painting The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring 1915, from 1961–62, shows the seven males dominating the foreground and the two women behind (Dismorr in the doorway being the furthest away).
She exhibited with the Vorticists again in New York in January 1917.
World War I
During World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
she was a nurse in France and then with the American Friends Service Committee. She had a nervous breakdown in 1920 following her war experiences. She received medical advice not to paint, but Lewis suspected that it was her modern style that was causing the doctors concern, and wrote to her that "the best possible distraction for you would be to paint".
She was at the centre of the London avant-garde world, acquainted with both T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, with her poems and illustrations being published, including in the Vorticist Blast magazine. In the 1930s she did portraits of poets, including Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
and exhibited with Charles Ginner
Charles Ginner
Charles Isaac Ginner was a painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.-Early years and studies:Charles Isaac...
and Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...
in the London Group
London Group
The London Group is an artists' exhibiting society based in London, England, founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy, which had become unadventurous and conservative....
, as well as with Ivon Hitchens
Ivon Hitchens
Ivon Hitchens was an English painter who started exhibiting during the 1920s. He became part of the 'London Group' of artists and exhibited with them during the 1930s. His house was bombed in 1940 during World War II, at which point he moved to a caravan on a patch of woodland near Petworth in...
and Ben Nicholson
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...
in the Seven and Five Society
Seven and Five Society
The Seven and Five Society was an art group of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London.The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities...
, having joined both these groups in 1926.
Later life
Throughout her life she continued painting and exhibiting her work, which became completely abstract during the 1930s. She contributed work to Axis magazine in 1937.Dismorr committed suicide by hanging on August 29, 1939, five days before Britain declared war on Germany.
Quentin Stevenson is currently writing her biography. Catherine Heathcock's (unpublished) PhD thesis contains a complete catalogue of Dismorr's works. The letters between Dismorr and Lewis are now at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
.
