Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson ARA

1889 - 1946

Richard Nevinson studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, alongside Stanley Spencer and Mark Gertler. When he left, he befriended Marinetti, the leader of the Italian Futurists, and Wyndham Lewis, who founded the short-lived Rebel Art Centre. However, Nevinson fell out with Lewis and the other 'rebel' artists when he attached their names to the Futurist movement. Lewis immediately founded the Vorticists, Britain's answer to the Futurists, from which Nevinson was excluded. At the outbreak of World War I, Nevinson joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit and was deeply disturbed by his work tending wounded French and British soldiers. He briefly served as a volunteer ambulance driver before ill health forced his return to Britain, subsequently volunteering for home service with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Nevinson used these experiences as the subject matter for a series of powerful paintings, which used the machine aesthetic of Futurism and the influence of Cubism to great effect. In 1917, Nevinson was appointed an Official War Artist, but increasingly painted in a more realistic style, later becoming a traditional landscape and townscape painter. Nevinson travelled to America, where he painted several powerful images of New York. A depressive and temperamental character, and boastful of his war experiences, Nevinson made many enemies in both the USA and Britain.