A Box at the Bedford
watercolour
inscribed, signed and dated ‘A Box at the Bedford J Dismorr 1924’ (lower right)
11.1/2 × 8.3/4 in. (29 × 22.3 cm.)
Read More »
Jessica Dismorr (1885–1939) was a pioneering British modernist whose career spanned Vorticism, abstraction and figurative painting. One of only two women to sign the Vorticist manifesto published in Blast in 1914, she was closely connected with Wyndham Lewis and the radical avant-garde, as well as writers including Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.
Her 1924 watercolour and pencil A Box at the Bedford captures the lively atmosphere of interwar London’s theatre culture. Painted after Dismorr had moved away from the fractured geometry of her Vorticist work, it uses loose pencil lines and fluid washes to suggest figures, movement and the smoky immediacy of a theatrical interior. The work demonstrates her ability to retain the energy of modernist abstraction while responding to the world around her.
Dismorr was also an important member of the Seven and Five Society, exhibiting alongside leading modernists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Her later work continued to move between abstraction and figuration, reflecting the rapidly changing language of British art between the wars.
Long overshadowed by her male contemporaries, Dismorr is now recognised as an important figure in British modernism. Her work is held in major collections including Tate and the British Museum.
A Box at the Bedford
watercolour
inscribed, signed and dated ‘A Box at the Bedford J Dismorr 1924’ (lower right)
11.1/2 × 8.3/4 in. (29 × 22.3 cm.)
Read More »
Jessica Dismorr (1885–1939) was a pioneering British modernist whose career spanned Vorticism, abstraction and figurative painting. One of only two women to sign the Vorticist manifesto published in Blast in 1914, she was closely connected with Wyndham Lewis and the radical avant-garde, as well as writers including Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.
Her 1924 watercolour and pencil A Box at the Bedford captures the lively atmosphere of interwar London’s theatre culture. Painted after Dismorr had moved away from the fractured geometry of her Vorticist work, it uses loose pencil lines and fluid washes to suggest figures, movement and the smoky immediacy of a theatrical interior. The work demonstrates her ability to retain the energy of modernist abstraction while responding to the world around her.
Dismorr was also an important member of the Seven and Five Society, exhibiting alongside leading modernists including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore. Her later work continued to move between abstraction and figuration, reflecting the rapidly changing language of British art between the wars.
Long overshadowed by her male contemporaries, Dismorr is now recognised as an important figure in British modernism. Her work is held in major collections including Tate and the British Museum.
