Sitwell

Sitwell English literary family, one of the most celebrated literary families of the 20th cent. Its members included Dame Edith Sitwell, 1887-1964, English poet and critic, Sir Osbert Sitwell, 1892-1969, English author, and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell , 1897-1988, English art critic. They were the children of Sir George Sitwell, an antiquarian and genealogist, and were reared on the family estate in Derbyshire. All three Sitwells evidenced a lively interest in contemporary movements in music, art, and literature. Although all were noted for their frivolity, precocity, and sophistication, a somber despair with the modern world underlies many of their works.

Edith Sitwell

An angular, aristocratic woman, 6 ft (183 cm) tall, Dame Edith Sitwell was famous for her wit and her eccentric appearance. Her poetry, strongly influenced by the French symbolists, ranges from the artificial and clever verse of her early years to the deeper and more religious poems of her maturity. Collections of her work include Clowns' Houses (1918), Rustic Elegies (1927), Gold Coast Customs (1929), The Song of the Cold (1948), Façade, and Other Poems, 1920-1935 (1950), Gardeners and Astronomers (1953), and The Outcasts (1962). Her Collected Poems appeared in 1954. Façade, characterized by ragtime rhythms and abstract word patterns, was set to music by William Walton and first read by her in 1922.

Important among her critical works are Poetry and Criticism (1925), Aspects of Modern Poetry (1934), and A Poet's Notebook (1943), a collection of aphorisms on the art of poetry. Other prose works include Alexander Pope (1930); The English Eccentrics (1933); I Live under a Black Sun (1937), a novel about Jonathan Swift; and Fanfare for Elizabeth (1946) and The Queens and the Hive (1962), biographies of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1954 she was made dame of the British Empire.

Osbert Sitwell

Sir Osbert was the author of poems, short stories, novels, and memoirs. Most of his verse is light and satiric. His works include: Triple Fugue (1924), short stories; Before the Bombardment (1926), a novel; Collected Poems and Satires (1931); Selected Poems (1943); Four Songs of the Italian Earth (1948); Collected Stories (1953); The Four Continents (1954), discursions on travel, art, and life; and Tales My Father Taught Me (1962).

His five-volume reminiscences about his family are a delightful account of British society of the Edwardian era— Left Hand, Right Hand (1944), The Scarlet Tree (1946), Great Morning (1947), Laughter in the Next Room (1948), and Noble Essences (1950). Upon his father's death in 1943, he became 5th baronet.

Sacheverell Sitwell

Sir Sacheverell was known for his art criticism— Southern Baroque Art (1924), German Baroque Art (1927), and The Gothick North (1929)—and for his poetry— The Cyder Feast (1927) and Canons of Giant Art (1933). He was also the author of biographies, Mozart (1932) and Liszt (rev. ed. 1955); essays and observations, Conversation Pieces (1936), The Hunters and the Hunted (1948), and Cupid and the Jacaranda (1952); and travel books, Spain (1950), Denmark (1956), and Golden Wall and Mirador (1961).

Bibliography

See Dame Edith's autobiography, Taken Care Of (1964) and selected letters (1970); study of her work by G. Singleton (1960); R. Fulford, Osbert Sitwell (1951); S. Bradford, Splendours and Miseries: A Life of Sacheverell Sitwell (1993); P. Ziegler, Osbert Sitwell (1999); J. Lehman, A Nest of Tigers: The Sitwells in Their Times (American ed. 1968).

Sitwell. Family of British writers, patrons, and collectors. Sir George Sitwell (1860–1943) was an antiquarian and genealogist. He had three children, who formed probably the most famous literary family of the 20th century: Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), Sir Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969), and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell (1897–1988). They grew up at the family seat, Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire, and are seen as children in Sargent's group portrait The Sitwell Family (1900), which is still at Renishaw. All three of them published numerous prose and verse works. Edith is best known as a poet, Osbert as an autobiographer, and Sacheverell for his writings on art and architecture, including several pioneering books on Baroque art, which was little appreciated in Britain when he started his career; Southern Baroque Art (1924) was the first of these books. The Sitwells were outspoken critics of culture they regarded as outmoded and they became vigorous champions of modernism in art, literature, and music, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s (after the Second World War their reputations and influence generally declined). Their most famous protégé was the composer William Walton, who collaborated with Edith on Façade (1922), a suite of ‘abstract poems’ or ‘patterns in sound'; it was greeted with abuse when first performed in public in 1923 but subsequently became popular in the concert hall and recordings. The Sitwells also helped to promote Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and in 1919 they sponsored an exhibition of ‘French Art 1914–17’ at the Mansard Gallery, London, which included work by Derain, Dufy, Matisse, and Modigliani. They patronized numerous artists, including several who made illustrations for their books. Osbert, who inherited Renishaw Hall when his father died, commissioned John Piper to make a series of paintings of the house and estate, many of which were reproduced in his autobiography (5 vols., 1944–50, with a 6th volume appearing in 1962).

There are many portraits of the Sitwells, particularly Edith, whose extremely flamboyant appearance made her an inviting subject. Among the painters who depicted her were Roger Fry (City Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1918), the Chilean-born Alvaro Guevara (1894–1951) (Tate Gallery, London, c. 1919), Wyndham Lewis (Tate Gallery, c.1923–35), and Pavel Tchelitchew (several pictures—she had an unrequited passion for him). The photographer and stage designer Sir Cecil Beaton (1904–80) took many pictures of her, and she also appears in Boris Anrep's mosaic floor in the National Gallery, London (as ‘Sixth Sense’ in The Modern Virtues). Osbert Sitwell, too, appears in Anrep's floor (as ‘Apollo’ in The Awakening of the Muses), but the best-known portrait of him is the brass head by Frank Dobson (Tate Gallery, 1923).