Wyndham Lewis’s sight began deteriorating during the 1930s as a result of an undiagnosed tumour pressing on his optic nerve. During the 1940s in Canada he began having serious problems. Nevertheless he was still able to continue painting and reviewing art exhibitions for The Listener after he returned to England in 1945. But in 1951 he announced his blindness.
The loss of sight was like a ‘sea mist’ clouding his vision, he explained in an article appropriately titled ‘The Sea-Mists of the Winter’. He proposed in future to write his books by means of a dictaphone. ‘Pushed into an unlighted room, the door banged and locked for ever, I shall then have to light a lamp of aggressive voltage in my mind to keep at bay the night.’