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Edward Alexander ('Aleister') Crowley

1 of 2 portraits of Edward Alexander ('Aleister') Crowley

© reserved; collection National Portrait Gallery, London

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Edward Alexander ('Aleister') Crowley

by Leon Engers Kennedy
oil on canvas, 1917-1918
36 in. x 24 in. (916 mm x 610 mm)
Purchased, 2003
Primary Collection
NPG 6630

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

Painted from life, this image conveys the mystical and transcendental aspects of Crowley's fame, without the demonic qualities of his self-portraits. Leon Engers-Kennedy had joined Crowley's occult society in 1912, and when they re-met in New York in 1917, Engers-Kennedy gave him house-room, and they both experimented with painting. The portrait forms the frontispiece for Crowley's The Equinox (III, No.1, 1919), and the dust wrapper of John Symonds's biography, King of the Shadow Realm (1989).

Events of 1917back to top

Current affairs

King George V changes his name from 'Saxe-Coburg' to 'Windsor.' Amid wartime anti-German public sentiment the British Royal Family decided to relinquish their German name and titles. The name 'Windsor' was chosen as variation on ''Wettin', the late Prince Albert's personal surname.

Art and science

The National Photographic Record is established at the instigation of the photographer Walter Stoneman to commission photographs of 'distinguished living contemporaries of British nationality.' This project allowed the National Portrait Gallery to circumvent its own rule that portraits could not enter the collection until the sitter had been dead ten years.

International

The Russian Revolution begins with the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Seven months later the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seize power in the October Revolution forming the Soviet Communist Government, which lasted until 1991. The USA abandons its neutrality and joins the war against Germany following a series of attacks on American passenger and merchant ships.

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