Cecil Beaton was one of the proteges of the young Sitwells, who discovered and supported artists, writers, musicians and photographers, many of whom became extremely well known. They included William Walton, Cecil Beaton, John Piper and Rex Whistler. This is a Beaton photograph of the three, capturing their eccentricity and originality.
Edith Sitwell was a grandly eccentric woman, described by one observer as "an altar on the move."
She set her aquiline nose and long fingers off with sweeping fabrics and many large rings, and she involved herself in the world of literature and the arts with gusto.
From 1916 to 1921 she edited Wheels, an annual anthology of modern verse. Her own poems explored the musical qualities of language and some were set to the music of William Walton, which matched their moods and rhythms.
They produced a challengingly modern piece of work, Façade, which was first performed at the Aeolian Hall in London in 1923, and produced one newspaper personline which enraged her brother Osbert - "Drivel They Paid to Hear".
Another writer called it "the jolliest entertainment of the season"
and commented "it is all very well for old-fashioned purists to say that poetry should not be read through a megaphone. The answer is that the Sitwells know what they are driving at better than we do"
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Edith had a perceptive and mocking wit, and her letters to her literary friends and to her family are a delight.
Here she writes to her sister-in-law Georgia from her London flat in the twenties:
"I can't tell you what I am going through. 'They' are putting fresh tiles into the flat beneath, and doing it up. So they say. But I don't think it is that. I think they are doing a sound-film of the Battle of Verdun, accompanied by racing contests between traction engines and elephants. Massed choirs are singing the March of the Men of Harlech, and a whole nation of mice seems to be nibbling through the wood work. Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints. What a life! What a Life!"
Whatever anyone thought of her, they could not ignore her. She and her brothers sponsored William Walton, T S Eliot, John Piper and Rex Whistler among others, and between them they contributed significantly to English letters of the 20th century.
Edith was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1954. She was also made an Honorary Doctory of Literature in 1948 of Leeds and Durham, of Oxford 1951 (the first woman to become so) and Sheffield 1954.
She died, unmarried, in 1964, and her autobiography, Taken Care Of was published posthumously.
Osbert wrote not only poetry but also many short stories, novels, including Before the Bombardment (1926) and his five volume autobiography Left Hand, Right Hand!
He had served in the Grenadier Guards and maintained a combative spirit in his literary life:
"Now, doubtless, the continual jeers and jibes at intelligence with which the modern mob must be coaxed into good humour and into a belief in its own superiority in the realms of the intellect, must work most artists up to a point of nervous exacerbation where disputes and quarrels are inevitable. Personally, I have never minded such developments, for my nervous system is tuned up to them, while the kindness and appreciation of other writers and artists from the outset has more than outbalanced any scratches I may have received."
He was generous in his support, financial and otherwise, to artists, musicians and writers of all kinds...
More than one writer has commented how the Sitwells were "fuelled by the constant need to fight back at a dimly comprehended enemy"
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In later years, recognised as a Grand Old Man of English Letters, he continued to write and also looked after the management of the Renishaw Estate and served as a Justice of the Peace.
Osbert was the fifth Baronet of Renishaw and succeeded his father Sir George in 1943. He was made CBE in 1956, and Companion of Honour in 1958. He was made an Honorary LlD (Doctor of Law) of St Andrews University in 1946 and Hon Doctor of Literature of Sheffield in 1951, also FRIDA in 1957 (Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects).
His first volume of poetry, The People's Palace, was published in 1918, but he is best known for his writing on the arts, for example Southern Baroque Art (1924), which Cyril Connolly described as "a milestone in the development of our modern sensibility"
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In 1925 Sachie married a beautiful Canadian girl, Georgia Doble.
This was his opportunity to escape from the dominance of his brother Osbert and develop his independence:
"Marrying, which lasting happiness of our own may have broken, or snapped, or strained the strings of family attachment. But it gave me my liberty, it made my own life, and let me work in peace."
Georgia was glad that he was escaping "this syndicate existence of petty hopes and fears which one can only call Sitwellism."
He lived and wrote for many years at Weston Hall, the Sitwell house in Northamptonshire. The poet John Betjeman wrote to him on the publication of Gothic Europe in 1969:
"What a relief you are after the fearful pedantry & dull art history which kills enjoyment & just gets scholarships for people and breeds more dullards. You are a life-enhancer."
Sachie wrote 135 books, only one novel, but a host of books on art, architecture, music (including biographies of Mozart in 1923, and Liszt in 1934) and many travel books. He was made a Companion of Honour, like his elder brother, and also Honorary Doctor of Sheffield University in 1951.