Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols
1 portrait matching these criteria:
- subject matching 'World War One portraits'
© National Portrait Gallery, London
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Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols
by Augustus John
chalk, 1921
12 in. x 9 1/2 in. (305 mm x 241 mm)
Bequeathed by Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols, 1952
Primary Collection
NPG 3825
Artistback to top
- Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961), Painter. Artist or producer associated with 33 portraits, Sitter in 106 portraits.
Linked publicationsback to top
- Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 69 Read entry
In the now-forgotten verse of Robert Nichols (1893-1944), Edith sensed a poet of real promise, providing him with encouragement during a long and sustained correspondence. But though his Ardours and Enduraces (1917) won him a temporary reputation as a War poet, the verdict of Nancy Cunard, with whom he was infatuated, that he was a 'shocking poet', was widely held. In America, however, he enjoyed success with a play, Wings over Europe (1928). Relations with the Sitwells deteriorated and in 1934 Nichols erupted into print with Fisbo, a monumental poem in rhyming couplets attacking Osbert on every conceivable front, including the furnishing of Carlyle Square:
A Regency bed, wax fruit à la Victoria,
Three chairs contructed from the bones of sauria,
A poor Picabia, a worse Kandisky,
A caricature in waxwork of Nijinsky.
- Crane, David; Judd, Alan, First World War Poets, 2014, p. 87
- Judd, Alan; Crane, David, Character Sketches: First World War Poets, 1997, p. 50
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 459
Events of 1921back to top
Current affairs
Marie Stopes, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer of family planning, opens her first clinic in London, offering a free service to married women. While Stopes's forthright and open-minded attitudes have helped to change opinion about family planning and sex, her opinions on eugenics have been criticised and are now out-of-step with current thinking.Art and science
British-born star of Hollywood Charlie Chaplin visits London where he is greeted by thousands. In 1921 Chaplain made his film, The Kid, which told the story of a tramp who finds an abandoned baby in an alley and decides to look after him. The portrayal of poverty in the film drew on Chaplain's own experiences of growing up in a working class family in London.International
The Anglo-Irish Treaty partitions Ireland into the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland. The Irish Free State was granted independence, while six of the Northern counties of Ulster decided to remain part of Britain. The treaty came into effect in 1922.Comments back to top
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