Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)

The Lewises' black and white Sealyham dog, called Tutsi and known affectionately as Mr Tut, featured in a number of drawings of the 1930s, carefree and playful sketches which provide a valuable antidote to the more commonly told tale of Lewis's notorious aggression, polemic and biting satire. When Tut died in 1944, Lewis wrote to a friend that the loss of 'this small creature, which stood for all that was benevolent in the universe' had brought into relief their isolation in Canada, particuarly for Froanna. 'Like the the spirit of a simpler and saner time, this fragment of primitive life confided his destiny to her, and went through all the black days beside us'. Little wonder then, that his death left an 'ugly gap'.

The dog's appeal went beyond the Lewises: when one of the drawings of Tut was included in the Tate's 1956 exhibition, subsequently travelling to various regional centres, a journalist at the Manchester Evening Chronicle urged readers not to miss 'the impudent pup ... an oasis in a stormy sea' (see exhibition catalogue, The Bone Beneath the Pulp Drawings by Wyndham Lewis, London, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, 2004, p. 28).