Artist. He was a founder member of the Vorticist movement and a designer of battleship camouflage. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, before studying engineering in Munich from 1906 until 1907. While there he studied art in his free time at the Knirr School, but soon abandoned engineering to devote himself entirely to art, attending the Bradford School of Art and the Slade School, London, where his fellow students included Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler and Dora Carrington. He took part in Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionism Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1912, but after meeting Wyndham Lewis, changed his style and exhibited at the Futurist Exhibitions at the Dore Gallery. He was one of the signatories of the Vorticist Manifesto, published in "Blast" in 1913, but only 33 days after the magazine was produced World War I broke out. He contributed to the Vorticist exhibition at the Dore Gallery in 1915, before enlisting in the navy soon afterwards. He served with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on the Island of Murdos until 1917, when he was invalided out. He then used Vorticist and Cubist ideas in the design of "Dazzle" camouflage, in which a pattern of disjointed lines were intended to prevent U-Boats from establishing the direction and speed of travel of battleships. His naval experiences influenced his art for the rest of his career, most famously in his painting "Dazzle Ship in Dry Dock" (1919) that saw him adopting a more realistic style. Towards the end of his life his work began to move towards surrealism, although he had no formal links with the Surrealist movement. Examples of his work can be seen at London's Tate Gallery.
Artist. He was a founder member of the Vorticist movement and a designer of battleship camouflage. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, before studying engineering in Munich from 1906 until 1907. While there he studied art in his free time at the Knirr School, but soon abandoned engineering to devote himself entirely to art, attending the Bradford School of Art and the Slade School, London, where his fellow students included Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler and Dora Carrington. He took part in Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionism Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1912, but after meeting Wyndham Lewis, changed his style and exhibited at the Futurist Exhibitions at the Dore Gallery. He was one of the signatories of the Vorticist Manifesto, published in "Blast" in 1913, but only 33 days after the magazine was produced World War I broke out. He contributed to the Vorticist exhibition at the Dore Gallery in 1915, before enlisting in the navy soon afterwards. He served with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on the Island of Murdos until 1917, when he was invalided out. He then used Vorticist and Cubist ideas in the design of "Dazzle" camouflage, in which a pattern of disjointed lines were intended to prevent U-Boats from establishing the direction and speed of travel of battleships. His naval experiences influenced his art for the rest of his career, most famously in his painting "Dazzle Ship in Dry Dock" (1919) that saw him adopting a more realistic style. Towards the end of his life his work began to move towards surrealism, although he had no formal links with the Surrealist movement. Examples of his work can be seen at London's Tate Gallery.
Bio by: js
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