‘Our Little Gang’
The Lives of the Vorticists
James KingThe bold lives and revolutionary art of England’s early 20th-century Vorticists.
The Vorticists, a rebellious cohort of young artists in early twentieth-century England, defied the conventions of the art world with their distinctive abstract creations. Despite the brevity of their existence, from 1911 to 1914, their startling innovations left an indelible mark on English art history. In this book James King explores the personalities and lives of these colourful individuals, capturing the tumultuous environment in which they thrived. The narrative presents biographies of the group’s members – ‘our little gang’, as Ezra Pound called them – highlighting personal conflicts and providing a concise, highly readable history of the movement. This book is ideal for art enthusiasts, historians and anyone intrigued by avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century.
The bold lives and revolutionary art of England’s early 20th-century Vorticists.
The Vorticists, a rebellious cohort of young artists in early twentieth-century England, defied the conventions of the art world with their distinctive abstract creations. Despite the brevity of their existence, from 1911 to 1914, their startling innovations left an indelible mark on English art history. In this book James King explores the personalities and lives of these colourful individuals, capturing the tumultuous environment in which they thrived. The narrative presents biographies of the group’s members – ‘our little gang’, as Ezra Pound called them – highlighting personal conflicts and providing a concise, highly readable history of the movement. This book is ideal for art enthusiasts, historians and anyone intrigued by avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century.
-
'
[A] gorgeously illustrated book . . . King splendidly succeeds in his aim to restore Dismorr and Saunders to their rightful place at the centre of Vorticism.
'The Art Newspaper
-
'
The ‘gang’ were seven highly talented, self-assured artists with a desire to set Britain’s parochial art scene on fire . . . This book is notable for its inclusion of Dismorr and Saunders, the two female members who have been overlooked until now. Both made a valuable contribution to a movement that threw a firework into the heart of the British establishment, exposing an environment hostile to artistic innovation. The ‘Vorticist effect’ reverberated long after the group’s collapse, setting a precedent for future radicalism.
'Christie’s ‘Best Art Books in 2025’
-
'
‘Our Little Gang’: The Lives of the Vorticists by King traces the history of the Vorticists, a group of young artists, including Jessica Dismorr, Wyndham Lewis, and Ezra Pound, who defied conventions with their abstract art in the early twentieth century.
'Publishers Weekly
-
'
King’s book aims to capture both the sense of intellectual and aesthetic possibility and excitement, the cultural ferment of the moment, and the range of forceful, not to say conflicting, personalities in the group, which included both Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, as well as – unusually in these very male-dominated groups – two women: Jessica Dismorr and Helen Saunders. It ought to be both hugely enjoyable and an excellent introduction to a brief but influential cohort of artists and writers.
'The Broken Compass
-
'
In ‘Our Little Gang’ James King casts appealing new light on Vorticism, the early twentieth-century avant-garde British art movement organized by painter and polemicist Wyndham Lewis. King explores the Vorticists’ commonalities and friendships, their individual differences from Lewis, their multiple rivalries, their grudges and their aesthetic disagreements. King’s lively historiography – and his attention to the importance of the often overlooked female Vorticists – offers a fresh approach to the movement that should interest all aficionados of modernist art.
'Scott W. Klein, Professor of English, Wake Forest University, and co-editor of Vorticism: New Perspectives
-
'
As well as conveying the radical extremism of the Vorticists’ revolt in art, James King vividly shows just how idiosyncratic they were as feisty personalities.
'Richard Cork, author of Encounters with Artists
Introduction
PART ONE: THE TYROS
1 The Would-Be Cubist: William Roberts
2 The Dissident: David Bomberg
3 The Coster: William Wadsworth
4 The Unseen: Helen Saunders
5 The Overlooked: Jessica Dismorr
6 The Provocateur: Wyndham Lewis
7 The Idealist: Henri Gaudier
PART TWO: IN THE VORTEX
8 The Italian Connection
9 An Ideal Home?
10 The Others
11 A New Room
12 Rooms of One’s Own
13 The Turncoat
14 ‘Great Silent Place’
15 The First Explosion
16 The Theorist
17 July 1914
18 The War
19 The Second Explosion
20 Other Spaces
21 The Exhibition
22 The Penguin Club
PART THREE: AFTERSHOCKS
23 ‘Less Cubism’: William Roberts
24 ‘Methodic Discord’: David Bomberg
25 ‘Cold-Blooded Persistence’: Edward Wadsworth
26 The Uninvited: Helen Saunders
27 The Unwanted: Jessica Dismorr
28 In Transition: Wyndham Lewis
Epilogue: The Last Supper
References
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
James King is Professor Emeritus of English at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His previous books include Paul Nash: Designer and Illustrator (2022).