Christopher Wood

Born 1901 – Died 1930

Christopher ‘Kit’ Wood was born in Knowsley, near Liverpool. Following an injury while playing football, Wood contracted a blood disease and was nursed at home by his mother, who encouraged him to take up watercolour painting. Although he had no formal training, he went to Paris in 1921 with the ambition of becoming ‘the greatest painter that ever lived.’ Soon establishing himself as a prominent and popular figure among the artistic and social circles of the 1920s Parisian avant-garde, he mingled with aristocrats and won the admiration of Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. During these years, he also travelled to Europe and North Africa with José Antonio de Gandarillas, a diplomat at the Chilean embassy in Paris.

Wood was one of very few British artists to have a solo exhibition in Paris at that time and was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev to design the sets for his Ballets Russes production of the ballet Romeo and Juliet. In Britain, Wood was a member of the Seven and Five Group and developed a close and mutually inspiring relationship with Ben and Winifred Nicholson. In 1930, he travelled to the French coastal town of Tréboul where he painted more than 40 works in less than six weeks. On his return to England, he was tragically killed by a train at Salisbury station after an opium-induced psychotic episode, aged 29. Devastated by the untimely death of his friend, Jim Ede organised a memorial exhibition for Wood in 1932 and continued to promote his legacy for the rest of his life. The work of Wood, which includes landscapes, portraits, floral compositions and harbour scenes painted in a vibrant and experimental style, was fundamental in shaping Ede’s artistic vision.