Modern Times: British Prints, 1913-1939

Modern Times: British Prints, 1913-1939 by Jennifer Farrell / ISBN 9781588397393 / 200-page hardcover, 9.25 x 10.25, just published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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A look at the artistic and technical innovation of British printmaking from World War I to the eve of World War II, as artists from the Grosvenor School and beyond harnessed an emerging modernist style

Throughout the tumultuous decades of the early twentieth century, the graphic arts flourished in Great Britain as artists sought to portray everyday life during the machine age. This richly illustrated volume reintroduces rare print works from the collection of Leslie and Johanna Garfield into the narrative of modernism, demonstrating their relationship to other movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism. Essays explore how artists turned to printmaking to alleviate trauma, memorialize their wartime experiences, and capture the aspirations and fears of the twenties and thirties. Special attention is given to the linocut technique revolutionized by Claude Flight and his students at London’s Grosvenor School of Modern Art. Highlighted as well are the pioneering works of artists such as C. R. W. Nevinson, Sybil Andrews, Cyril E. Power, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Edith Lawrence, Ursula Fookes, and Lill Tschudi. In their quest to promote a more democratic art, these artists created innovative graphics that portrayed in subject, form, material, and technique the dynamic era in which they lived.