Vital English Art: Futurism and the Vortex of London 1910-14: C.R.W. Nevinson's Pre-war Association with the Italian Futurists Profoundly Affected His Art But Led to an Irreparable Split with the Rest of the English Avant-Garde. Michael Walsh Explores Nevinson's Art in This Formative Period, Using Recently Discovered Images of Lost Paintings‪.‬

The recent exhibition 'Blasting the Future: Vorticism in Britain 1910-1920' at the Estorick collection of Modern Italian Art, London, and also at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, placed Italian Futurism firmly at the heart of the English modernist experiment in the second decade of the twentieth century. (1) The curators were at pains to emphasise the tantalising and by no means peripheral or transient links and interactions between the bombastic European polemic of Futurism and the more widely acclaimed British modernist coteries that have received much scholarly attention. In particular, their interpretation shifted the emphasis away from the traditional reading which has long been satisfied with the idea that the potent images of the Great War by C.R.W. Nevinson (traditionally seen as 'England's only Futurist') were his sole contribution to British modernism. An analysis of Nevinson's pre-war opus in London and a reconsideration of the importance of one of the most original and controversial artists, and movements, of this generation are therefore timely. This article sets out to examine how he became involved with F.T. Marinetti's movement, the importance of his friendship with Gino Severini and the use he made of these factors to promote himself to the position of vanguard of the British avant-garde, in the years 1913 and 1914. 'Gay incendiaries'