Lytton Strachey

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Lytton Strachey

by Nina Hamnett
chalk, circa 1917
16 in. x 6 1/2 in. (406 mm x 165 mm)
Given by Lady Gosse and family, 1928
Primary Collection
NPG 2215

Sitterback to top

  • (Giles) Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Critic and biographer; son of Sir Richard Strachey. Sitter in 144 portraits, Artist or producer associated with 5 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Nina Hamnett (1890-1956), Painter. Artist or producer of 2 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Clerk, Honor, The Sitwells, 1994 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 14 October - 22 January 1995), p. 71 Read entry

    The fact that the critic and biographer Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) was a frequent guest of the Sitwells, in England and in Italy, did not prevent mutual sniping behind the scenes. After a grim evening at the Anglo-French Poetry Society in 1920 Strachey wrote to Dora Carrington that Edith, 'her nose longer than an ant-eater's', read some of 'her absurd stuff'.1 Edith retaliated in her autobiography that Strachey 'seemed to have been cut out of very thin cardboard'2 and she must have taken satisfaction when the Observer<.i> praised her Victoria of England (1936) as 'broader and warmer' than Strachey's earlier biography.

    1 Quoted in John Pearson, Façades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, 1978, p 166.

    2 Edith Sitwell, Taken Care Of, an autobiography, 1965, p 86.

Subjects & Themesback to top

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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