Contemporary

Atlantic City by Helen Saunders discovered under Praxitella by Wyndham Lewis, who may have painted over it on purpose.

“It was only later that the radical nature of the work became valued and celebrated,” said Wright. “In the prewar years, she was one of the most radical painters and draughtspeople around. “She became close friends with Wyndham Lewis, they were extremely close emotionally, but after the war he turned his back on her and she found that hard to take. Saunders was one of only two women to join the vorticists. Atlantic City by Helen Saunders, a member of the radical and short-lived vorticist movement, depicts a fragmented modern metropolis, almost certainly in the vibrant colours associated with the group. They found an abstract composition beneath the portrait that was eventually identified as the hitherto lost Atlantic City.