A Glittering Façade: Art, Music, and Poetry in London's Jazz Age October 3, 2008

A Glittering Façade: Art, Music, and Poetry in London's Jazz Age
Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University

In London in the 1920s a brilliant artistic circle assembled around Dame Edith Sitwell and her two younger brothers, Sir Osbert and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell. All three Sitwells were accomplished poets and writers, and they often collaborated. They were early collectors of modern art, and in 1919 the brothers mounted a forward-looking exhibition of the works of Matisse, Utrillo, Picasso, Modigliani, and others. The vibrant and creative group that surrounded the Sitwells included such luminaries as photographer Cecil Beaton, choreographer Frederick Ashton, painter Wyndham Lewis, and composer William Walton, whose jazz-inspired music accompanied Edith’s rhythmic, abstract poetry in the witty Façade: An Entertainment.

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