Richard Wyndham (painter)

Born into an aristocratic family in Canterbury (his father was Guy Wyndham), he was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.^[1][3]

He served as a lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army,^[1] and, during the First World War, was transferred at the Second Battle of Ypres, being awarded the Military Cross.^[3]

Wyndham later began studying art; he was a pupil of the painter and novelist Wyndham Lewis.^[2] Much later, in the 1930 novel The Apes of God, Richard Wyndham is portrayed satirically by Lewis as the character Richard Whittingdon.^[4] In response Wyndham offered two of Lewis's paintings for sale in The Times personal column, describing them by size rather than description.^[5][6]

In 1914, still only 18, he unexpectedly inherited Clouds House at East Knoyle in Wiltshire. From 1924 he let the house out, and sold the entire estate in 1936.^[7] In 1927 he purchased Tickerage Mill, a residence on the outskirts of Uckfield, Sussex, close to his friend, fellow painter Edward Wadsworth.^[3]

Wyndham drove fast cars, flew his own plane and partied with members of the Bright Young People, a group of young bohemians from British high society.^[8] His social circle included Tallulah Bankhead, Ann Charteris, Cyril Connolly, Tom Driberg, Ian Fleming, Constant Lambert, Peter Quennell, the Sitwells and A. J. A. Symons.^[9][10]

He entered his first marriage in 1920 with Iris Winifred Youell Bennett (divorced in 1925) and, for the second time, with Grethe Wulfsberg in 1930 (divorced in 1941).^[1]

Wyndham exhibited at Goupil and Leicester and Tooth Galleries, having a first solo exhibition at the latter in 1933, and had works purchased by Edward Marsh, Manchester City Art Gallery and galleries in Brighton, Hull, Rochdale and Belfast.^[3][11]

He died in 1948 in Palestine while covering the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as a correspondent for The Sunday Times.^[12][13]

The Gentle Savage: A Sudanese Journey in the Province of Bahr-El-Ghazal, Commonly Called The Bog was published in 1936. It chronicles Wyndham's travels in Southern Sudan up the Nile by river boat, including 48 photos by the author.^[14] An account of a pre-war journey he made around South East England was published in 1940, also including his own photographs.^[15]

His half brother was the writer and editor Francis Wyndham. His daughter (with Iris Bennett) was the writer and memorist Joan Wyndham.