C. R. W. Nevinson British, 1889-1946

Nevinson studied at the Slade School between 1908 and 1912 where his contemporaries included Gertler, Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer and Edward Wadsworth. For one year he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and  shared a studio with Modigliani. Early in his career Nevinson's paintings were mildly impressionist. However, exposure to Marinetti and Italian Futurism had a profound affect on him and as the critic, Frank Rutter, observed: 'I do not know of any other English artist who has been so profoundly influenced by the Italian Futurists.' He was among the first painters to shock London with uncompromising paintings and prints of the First World War. Rutter acknowledged that they 'were the first war pictures to create a stir. They were topical, they were new things shown in a new way.' Associated with Wyndham Lewis and Vorticisim, he contributed to the second issue of Blast and in 1920 he exhibited at Lewis's Group X exhibition. He held successful solo exhibitions at the Leicester Galleries in 1916 and 1918. It was towards the end of the war that Nevinson renounced the principles of Futurism and his later work was more conventional in manner and less vigorous in its impact. A major retrospective of his work was staged by the Imperial War Museum in 1999/2000.