Vorticism
Established around 1914 by Wyndham Lewis, Vorticism emerged from the same cultural climate that had fuelled Futurism, embracing the excitement for technological innovation across Europe and rejecting the suffocating Victorian traditions. The movement positioned itself as the voice of the British avant‑garde, centred on the idea of energy radiating from a vortex, a dynamic core from which force and motion expanded. This radical stance was reflected in the group’s magazine BLAST, which, despite only two published issues, had a profound impact on the avant‑garde scene. Ezra Pound and Lewis remained the leading figures of Vorticism, but artists from various disciplines were associated with the group, including painter Helen Saunders, writer T. S. Eliot, and sculptors Henri Gaudier‑Brzeska and Jacob Epstein.