Lewis began as an avant-garde painter and became friends with Pound in 1909 or 1910. In 1914, they co-founded the art movement Vorticism. Due to a lack of commercial success, Lewis turned to writing, which became his main means of expression from the 1920s. He created some later paintings, most notably portraits in oil of his avant-gardist friends. These included portraits of T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and Pound. He made sketches of James Joyce but never painted him.
