[128563] Leeds Art Gallery : Things Left Unsaid - What Lies Beneath

Leeds Art Gallery, The Headrow, Leeds.

Exhibition.

Things Left Unsaid.

Percy Wyndham Lewis, Iris Barry, Helen Saunders and the story of Praxitella.

22 Jun-5 Nov 2023.

 

What Lies Beneath.

Discovering Helen Saunders' Atlantic City.

 

The large X-ray reproduction here revealed, for the first time, the abstract composition underneath 'Praxitella'. X-radiography is a non-invasive imaging technique that uses x-ray radiation to penetrate the surface of a painting and reveal the layers underneath. In this case, it uncovered a completely different painting.

 

The abstract, angular forms of the painting beneath 'Praxitella' are clearly visible in the X-ray and bear no relation to Lewis's portrait. The style of the abstract composition is characteristic of work by artists who were part of the short-lived Vorticist group. Founded by Lewis in London in 1914, it had its last exhibition in 1917. The Vorticists created hard-edged, often abstract works full of energy and tension, like the forces of a vortex.

 

At first, it was assumed that this was one of Lewis's own early Vorticist works. However, turning the x-ray upside down (as it is seen here), indicated a match to the only known image of a significant lost painting called 'Atlantic City', painted around 1915 by Helen Saunders, Lewis's close friend and fellow Vorticist. This image appears in the second and final issue of the group's journal, 'Blast'. The black and white reproduction is likely to be a preparatory drawing for Saunders' 'Atlantic City. When it is overlaid with the x-ray, the two compositions match closely.

 

Saunders 'Atlantic City' was amongst her key Verticist works. She presented it at the group's first exhibition in London in 1915. Its abstract vision of an energetic and dynamic modern city shows her to be at the forefront of contemporary art during this period.

 

Could it have been Lewis who painted over 'Atlantic City' with a layer of white paint in order to reuse the canvas? After the First World War, Lewis turned away from Vorticism and broke off his relationship with Saunders. But just who applied the layer of white paint is not conclusively known.

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Wyndham Lewis said it took him the strength of seventeen water buffaloes to paint Praxitella, one of the most iconic and enigmatic 'portraits' of the early 20th century. Over 100 years after it was first shown in the exhibition 'Portraits and Tyros' in 1921, Lewis's painting was subject to investigation at Courtauld Conservation which revealed startling outcomes. This focused exhibition tells that story, the people involved in its making, some whose voices have been eclipsed, and looks at the wider social terrain to ask how it affects its meaning for us today.

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The story of how a lost masterpiece was hidden for more than 100 years under another famous 20th Century painting is being told in Leeds.

 

Atlantic City depicted an abstract vision of a modern city. It was discovered in 2019 under Praxitella, by Percy Wyndham Lewis, the founder of the short-lived Vorticists movement.

 

Two students at the Courtauld Department of Conservation in London, used X-ray analysis to find it. Praxitella has been part of the collection at Leeds Art Gallery since 1945, and was created by Wyndham Lewis in around 1921.

 

A spokesperson for the gallery said subtle clues, including raised paint lines and tiny surface cracks, led experts to believe there might be a second painting underneath it. However, with no way of knowing for sure the concealed composition's true nature remained a mystery.

 

That was until Rebecca Chipkin and Helen Kohn were researching Praxitella, which was on loan from Leeds Art Gallery, and found Atlantic City, by Helen Saunders, the artwork which had been a secret for so long.

 

 

Done