"...she fled the studio after being lunged at by the artist..."
...and before Lewis had got 'round to painting Edith's hands
"...her hands were the feature of which she was the most proud."
(from the Victoria Glendenning biography of Edith Sitwell)
My first introduction was via an LP of Façade, her collaboration with William Walton. The flavo[u]r comes through, though the recording I knew was a later recording:
But the poetry-as-sound, though glorious, doesn't capture Dame Edith's astonishing personality and self-presentation.
A later version of Façade, with others reciting:
...and a pdf of the Text of the poems, a Gauntlet Thrown to the reader...
Edith Sitwell's life was remarkable for its vividnesses and impracticalities (she was chronically impecunious, but lived grandly), and for the stories that ballooned from her acquaintanceships (she knew Everyone, even Marilyn Monroe...) and grand hostilities (Noel Coward was a favo[u]rite enemy). The story of her portrait by Wyndham Lewis is ...:
"...she fled the studio after being lunged at by the artist..."
...and before Lewis had got 'round to painting Edith's hands
"...her hands were the feature of which she was the most proud."
(from the Victoria Glendenning biography of Edith Sitwell)
Time spent on a delicious review of a recent biography will enlighten you further...