1. Kate Elizabeth Lechmere was a British painter who with Wyndham Lewis was the co-founder of the Rebel Art Centre in 1914.
17 Facts About Kate Lechmere
1. 2.
Kate Lechmere's father was Arthur Lechmere, a farmer, and her mother was Alice Lechmere.
3.
Kate Lechmere studied at the Atelier La Palette, Paris, and later under Walter Sickert at the Westminster School of Art.
4.
Kate Lechmere was close to Lawrence Atkinson with whom she had studied the piano in Normandy.
5.
Kate Lechmere wrote that she first met Wyndham Lewis in 1912, though according to Paul O'Keeffe it was late 1910 or early 1911.
6.
One of the things that Lewis liked about Kate Lechmere was her smile and her laugh, smiles being notably missing from most of Lewis's works in the early 1910s.
7.
Kate Lechmere was the model for his Smiling Woman Ascending a Stair and The Laughing Woman, both 1912.
8.
About January 1914, Kate Lechmere wrote to Wyndham Lewis from France suggesting that they set up a "modern art Studio in London, run on much the same lines as those in Paris".
9.
Kate Lechmere paid the first three months' rent for the centre, paid to have the interior walls moved in order to create the right sized spaces for studios, and even bought a new suit for Lewis.
10.
Kate Lechmere lived in a small flat at the top of the building.
11.
Kate Lechmere was asked by Lewis to complete a drawing for the first edition of BLAST but due to the difficult atmosphere at the time she could not do so.
12.
The Centre attracted plenty of press attention, including a visit from the Evening Standard for which Kate Lechmere posed pretending to finish one of her paintings.
13.
Some accounts suggest that Lewis had timed the visit to ensure that Kate Lechmere was out and would not meet Hulme, but she returned unexpectedly early from lunch.
14.
Kate Lechmere had the reputation of being a bully and arrogant because of this abruptness.
15.
Kate Lechmere took to pacing up and down and calling Lechmere a "bloody bitch," which she chose to ignore.
16.
Kate Lechmere was stationed for several years at Macclesfield, near Hulme's relatives where he could visit her.
17.
Kate Lechmere made a dress for Vanessa Bell and hats under commission for several theatre productions.