Hip Bath, c.1911-12 (oil on canvas)

This painting was first exhibited in 1912 at a time when Etchells was associated with Roger Fry and the artists of the Bloomsbury Group. Fry bought it that year and displayed it in the hall at Durbins, his house near Guildford. Etchells joined Fry’s Omega workshop in 1913 but left to form a rival group under the leadership of the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The stylised figure, the strange flattening of the bath and the unfinished appearance offended conventional taste and Etchells was accused by one critic of setting out to "merely play the clown and lose all sense of responsibility."