‘Our Little Gang’

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).

[A] gorgeously illustrated book . . . King splendidly succeeds in his aim to restore Dismorr and Saunders to their rightful place at the centre of Vorticism. - Christoph Irmscher, The Art NewspaperThe ‘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 WeeklyKing’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. - Mathew Lyons, The Broken CompassIn ‘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 PerspectivesAs 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

• IntroductionPART ONE: THE TYROS1 The Would-Be Cubist: William Roberts2 The Dissident: David Bomberg3 The Coster: William Wadsworth4 The Unseen: Helen Saunders5 The Overlooked: Jessica Dismorr6 The Provocateur: Wyndham Lewis7 The Idealist: Henri GaudierPART TWO: IN THE VORTEX8 The Italian Connection9 An Ideal Home?10 The Others11 A New Room12 Rooms of One's Own13 The Turncoat14 'Great Silent Place'15 The First Explosion16 The Theorist17 July 191418 The War19 The Second Explosion20 Other Spaces21 The Exhibition22 The Penguin ClubPART THREE: AFTERSHOCKS23 'Less Cubism': William Roberts24 'Methodic Discord': David Bomberg25 'Cold-Blooded Persistence': Edward Wadsworth26 The Uninvited: Helen Saunders27 The Unwanted: Jessica Dismorr28 In Transition: Wyndham LewisEpilogue: The Last SupperReferencesSelect BibliographyAcknowledgementsPhoto AcknowledgementsIndex