ID: 1491
BLAST Nos 1 and 2.
LEWIS, Wyndham

Category: Art, First Edition, First World War, Illustrated, Poetry

Place/Publisher/Date:
London, John Lane, The Bodley Head. 1914 and 1915.

Description: First editions; two volumes; small folio; original paper wrappers. No 1, June 20, 1914, pink paper wrappers. No 2, July 1915, paper wrappers with black and white Vorticist design by Lewis. In December 1913, Ezra Pound wrote to William Carlos Williams calling the London art/literary scene 'The Vortex.' Wyndham Lewis appropriated the term for his new movement in the arts. The first issue of Blast, A Review of the Great English Vortex, is now considered one of this century's finest examples of modernist expression and typography a milestone in modern thought. Blast came as a shock with the wrappers in violent pink, the large format displaying radical typography and design, featuring a 'Vorticist Manifesto' and eye-catching list of items to be 'Blessed' and 'Blasted.' 'Blasted' are, France, English Humour, Victorianism, aesthetes, the Anglican Church, popular writers and composers, do-gooders, sportsmen; 'Blessed' are British Industry, trade unionists, aviators, music hall entertainers, hairdressers, ports, and members of the avant-garde. Also included are important essays by Lewis, original line cuts by such artists as Lewis, Wadsworth, Roberts, Jacob Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska, and literary contributions from the Pound, Lewis, Rebecca West, Ford Madox Ford ('The Saddest Story,' later to become 'The Good Soldier'). The second and final issue of Blast has more propaganda on behalf of Vorticism in painting, sculpture and literature. It also contains prose and poetry by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, and the historic instructive aesthetics of 'Vortex (written from the Trenches)' by Gaudier-Brzeska - a piece composed just before the sculptor's death in France. These are very fragile productions and have been subject to a little professional restoration and. They are housed in a stunning custom made box with a Lewis inspired design by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.

Price £5,500.00