Publisher's Synopsis
The rise of the colour linocut during the 1920s and 1930s is one of the most remarkable episodes in British printmaking this century. By their bold colour and dynamic rhythms, these prints vividly evoke the speed and movement of the modern machine age first espoused by the Italian Futurists. - - Claude Flight, who made the greatest contribution to the linocut movement, was an original and inspiring artist and teacher, who attracted many promising students to his classes at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. Among the most gifted of these were the English artists Cyril E. Power and Sybil Andrews, the Swiss artist Lill Tschudi, and the Australians Dorrit Black, Ethel Spowers and Eveline Syme. - - A twentieth-century technique, the linocut was energetically promoted by Flight as the modern medium for the modern age. together with the dynamism of urban life and of machine-age speed, Flight and his followers celebrated the movement of the human figure at work and at leisure, and the ceaseless rhythms of nature. By their engaging contemporary subject-matter, their lively abstract design and decorative colour, these linocuts rank among the most arresting images produced in the Art Deco period. - - Drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources, including letters, memoirs, photographs and critical appraisals in the press, Stephen Coppel provides a fascinating account of the work and lives of these seven artists. - - A key feature of the book is an extensive and fully illustrated catalogue raisonné which documents a total of 380 linocuts, arranged in chronological order by artist. The catalogue records their exhibition history and location and provides documentary and contextual notes on individual entries. - - The Limited Edition of 30 copies includes an original linocut Ski-joring, made by Lill Tschudi in 1937, and not previously editioned. (0 185928 179 6, £495.00). - - Publication of Linocuts of the Machine Age coincides with the opening of two London exhibitions of the work of the Grosvenor School artists at the Coram and Redfern Galleries.
