Malcolm Arbuthnot

1877 - 1967

Malcolm Arbuthnot was born in Surrey, England, and became a well known photographer, working for Kodak in the early years of the 20th century. He had a one man show of his photographs in 1912 at the Goupil Gallery. The Amateur Photographer regularly printed his work. This time saw a massive increase of interest in photography, and the first small pocket cameras were being produced at this time (principally by Kodak, with their 'Brownie'). Now the average man in the street could become a photographer for very little outlay. Arbuthnot became interested in modern painting styles and organised Liverpool's Post-Impressionist Exhibition. It was probably during this time that he met Wyndham Lewis, for by the next year, Arbuthnot was a signatory of the Vorticist Manifesto in BLAST, and was producing striking Vorticist pictorial works. He died December 1967 in Jersey.