Rhythms of Modern Life

It is little known that interbellum Britain hosted a generation of Modernist artists who absorbed the wealth of Continental avant-garde idioms and adapted them to their own unique ends. Some of this work was done under the rubric of Vorticism, the Neofuturist movement spearheaded by Wyndham Lewis, while other artists were closely associated with London’s Grosvenor School of Art (and so came to be known collectively as the Grosvenor School), breaking new ground in the practice of linocut. Rhythms of Modern Life examines the impact of Cubism and Futurism on British printmaking in the years between the First and Second World Wars, focusing in particular on the dynamic imagery of 13 artists, including C.R.W. Nevinson, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth and David Bomberg, all early followers of Italian Futurism and British Vorticism, and on the works of Grosvenor School artists Claude Flight, Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power and Lill Tschudi. All of these artists coined styles that addressed the velocity of modern life, espousing industry, speed and an optimism for the century ahead. This book, the first survey of its kind, features more than 100 lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and linocuts, ranging from geometric abstractions to forceful impressions of the first fully mechanized war, Jazz Age images of sporting events, speed trials and other contemporary diversions. Clifford S. Ackley’s introduction takes stock of the art historical moment and is followed by discussions of the prints, an overview of the history and technique of the modern linocut and short biographies of the artists.