Select Page

Richard Wyndham (painter)

Guy Richard Charles Wyndham (29 August 1896 – 19 May 1948) was a British painter, engraver, author and soldier.[1] He made many work trips to southern Europe and died in Palestine while covering the war as a correspondent for The Sunday Times.[2] He was a member of the Bright Young People, a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in London during the Roaring Twenties.[3]

Biography

Born into a landed gentry family in Canterbury (his father was Guy Wyndham), he was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[1][3]

He served as a lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army,[1] and, during the First World War, transferred at the Second Battle of Ypres, being awarded the Military Cross.[3]

Wyndham later began studying art; he was a pupil of the painter and novelist Wyndham Lewis.[2] Much later, in the 1930 novel The Apes of God, Richard Wyndham is portrayed satirically by Lewis as the character Richard Whittingdon.[4] In response Wyndham offered two of Lewis's paintings for sale in The Times personal column, describing them by size rather than description.[5][6]

In 1914 he inherited Clouds House at East Knoyle in Wiltshire. From 1924 he let the house out, and sold the entire estate in 1936.[7] In 1927 he purchased Tickerage Mill, a residence on the outskirts of Uckfield, Sussex, close to his friend, fellow painter Edward Wadsworth.[3]

Wyndham drove fast cars, flew his own plane and partied with members of the Bright Young People, a group of young bohemians from British high society.[8] His social circle included Tallulah Bankhead, Ann Charteris, Cyril Connolly, Tom Driberg, Ian Fleming, Constant Lambert, Peter Quennell, the Sitwells and A. J. A. Symons.[9][10]

Bright Young People group at a costume party in 1927; Wyndham is listed in the photography's caption.

He entered his first marriage in 1920 with Iris Winifred Youell Bennett (divorced in 1925) and, for the second time, with Grethe Wulfsberg in 1930 (divorced in 1941).[1]

Wyndham exhibited at Goupil and Leicester and Tooth Galleries, having a first solo exhibition at the latter in 1933, and had works purchased by Edward Marsh, Manchester City Art Galleries and galleries in Brighton, Hull, Rochdale and Belfast.[3][11]

He died in 1948 in Palestine while covering the war as a correspondent for The Sunday Times.[12][13]

Author

The Gentle Savage: A Sudanese Journey in the Province of Bahr-El-Ghazal, Commonly Called The Bog was published in 1936. It chronicles Wyndham's travels in Southern Sudan up the Nile by river boat, including 48 photos by the author.[14] An account of a pre-war journey he made around South East England was published in 1940, also including his own photographs.[15]

His half brother was the writer and editor Francis Wyndham. His daughter (with Iris Bennett) was the writer and memorist Joan Wyndham.

List of paintings

Image Title Date Material Collection
Winter Landscape c. 1925
A Dinka Herdsman 1927/1937
The Medway near Tonbridge 1936
The Pink Boat 1938
Tickerage Mill c. 1939
Summer Landscape (1) 1947
Still Waters before 1948
Storm over Greece
Summer Landscape (2)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Lives of the First World War. "We remember – Guy Richard Charles Wyndham". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  2. ^ a b Oxford Reference. "Wyndham, Guy Richard Charles". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 31 January 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
  4. ^ Perrino, Mark. 'Marketing Insults: Wyndham Lewis and the Arthur Press', in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 54-80
  5. ^ The Times, 2 September 1930, p. 1
  6. ^ Dakers, Caroline. Clouds: The Biography of a Country House (1993), p. 222
  7. ^ Renton, Claudia (2014). Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power. London: William Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-754489-9.
  8. ^ Gill, Brendan (1927). "Tallulah". Holt, Rinehart & Winston. p. 127. ISBN 9780030010262. Retrieved 1 February 2025. {{cite web}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  9. ^ Biography, British Antiques Dealers' Association
  10. ^ Quennell, Peter. The Wanton Chase: An Autobiography From 1939 (1980), pp. 126-131
  11. ^ Dakers, Caroline: Richard Wyndham: A Retrospective Exhibition, catalogue, Henry Wyndham Fine Art Ltd., London, 1993
  12. ^ The Associated Press (20 May 1948), "Newsman Killed By Gunfire", The Evening Citizen, vol. 105, no. 278, Ottawa, ON, p. 23, retrieved 4 August 2016
  13. ^ Ian Fleming. 'Major Richard Wyndham, M.C.', in The Sunday Times, 23 May 1948, p. 6
  14. ^ Cassell, London (1936)
  15. ^ South-Eastern Survey : a last look round Sussex, Kent and Surrey, Batsford (1940)