Edward Wadsworth

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Edward Wadsworth
Edward Wadsworth.jpg
Wadsworth in 1916
Born
Edward Alexander Wadsworth

29 October 1889 (1889-10-29)
Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, England
Died21 June 1949 (1949-06-22) (aged 59)
Bayswater, London, England
Known forPainting
MovementVorticism


Edward Alexander Wadsworth ARA (29 October 1889 – 21 June 1949) was an English artist, closely associated with modernist Vorticism movement. He painted coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life in tempera medium and works printed using wood engraving and copper. In the First World War he designed dazzle camouflage for the Royal Navy, and continued to paint nautical themes after the war.


Early life and study[edit]

Edward Wadsworth was born on 19 October 1889 in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire to Fred and Hannah (née Smith) Wadsworth. His mother died of puerperal sepsis nine days after giving birth. His father was understandably devastated by the loss and found it difficult to relate to the baby. Fred was running the thriving family business - Broomford Mill - that specialised in spinning lustrous wool for weaving braids for uniforms. Edward had a lonely childhood, although his Auntie Annie was very caring towards him. He became a boarder at Godby's School, Ilkley at the age of 10 and was sent to Fettes College in Edinburgh in 1903.[1] At the time Fettes had a reputation as the 'toughest school in the British Isles' and Edward 'loathed most of his time there'[2]

Fred Wadsworth had in mind that Edward would take over the business and it was probably because Broomford Mill had important clientele in Germany that Edward was sent to study engineering and the German language in Munich between 1906 and 1907. Edward didn't complete his engineering degree but he did learn German and most significantly he studied art in his spare time at the Knirr School. Here he learned woodcut printing and drawing. Munich was a cultural hotbed and Edward was introduced to a lively artistic and intellectual way of life. When he returned home he had decided that he wanted to be an artist - his father was appalled.[3]

Art school and beyond[edit]

Wadsworth was now the beneficiary of a £250 a year income - probably via a trust fund set up by his Aunt Annie [4] - making him financially independent of his father. He attended Bradford School of Art before earning a scholarship to the Slade School of Art, London and spent some time at Le Havre, prior to the start of term.[5] His contemporaries at the school included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, CRW Nevinson, Dora Carrington, William Roberts, and Dora Carrington - 'one of the greatest student classes in the history of English art schools'[6] and his tutors Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer exhibited in an 'impressionist' style with the New English Art Club whilst stressing the discipline of drawing as 'an explanation of form, analysing its construction, preparation and direction [the direction of the bones]' in their teaching.[7] Although the cohort at the Slade was socially diverse, Wadsworth's closest friends - C.R.W. Nevinson and Adrian Allinson were from similarly wealthy backgrounds.

Roger Fry was lecturer in art history at the Slade and was influencial in bringing the work of European modern artists such as Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh to London in a major exhibition 'Manet and the Post-Impressionists' at the Grafton Galleries towards the end of 1910. Barbara Wadsworth in her biography, 'A Painter's Life. Edward Wadsworth' describes him as slowly developing in style and choice of media whilst at the Slade, yet only really making a real aesthetic leap when he met up with Wyndham Lewis. [8] In 1911 he had met Fanny Mary Eveleigh - - a professional violinist - and they married in April 1912 as Wadsworth was nearing the end of his time at the Slade. They set up home in Gloucester Walk off of Kensington Church Street. Wadsworth was starting to exhibit and had a work included in Fry's 'Second Post Impressionist Exhibition' in January 1913.[9] This exhibition brought 'cubist' pictures by Picasso and Braque to London and Wadsworth was included in ' The English Group' that included Bloomsbury artists such as Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, and Stanley Spencer [10]

Career[edit]

Edward Wadsworth and Wyndham Lewis at the Rebel Art Centre, March 1914, with Kate Lechmere and Cuthbert Hamilton (seated).
Abstract Composition, 1915 Tate Gallery.

He exhibited some futurist-derived paintings at the Futurist Exhibitions at the Doré Gallery. Although a member of the committee that organised a dinner in honour of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1913, he was one of a number of British painters in the nascent avant-garde that became increasingly disenchanted with the Italian's arrogance. By June of the following year, he was in a group of artists, including Lewis, who jeered Marinetti's public performance of The Battle Of Adrianople.[11] He was a signatory of the Vorticist Manifesto published in BLAST the next month,[12] and also supplied a review of Kandinsky's Concerning The Spiritual In Art and images to be reproduced in the magazine.[13]

First World War[edit]

Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool, 1919, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Thirty three days after the Vorticist Manifesto was published, war was declared on Germany. Vorticism managed to continue into 1915, with a Vorticist Exhibition, June 1915 at the Doré Gallery and a second edition of BLAST published to coincide with the show. Wadsworth contributed to both, but signed up for the navy shortly after. His fellow vorticist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska was killed at the front and Bomberg and Lewis found that their belief in the purity of the machine age was seriously challenged by the realities of the trenches. Wadsworth spent the war in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on the island of Mudros until invalided out in 1917, transferring dazzle camouflage designs onto allied ships.[14][15] Known as Dazzle ships, these vessels were not camouflaged to become invisible, but instead used ideas derived from Vorticism and Cubism to confuse enemy U-boats trying to pinpoint the direction and speed of travel.[16] Dazzle camouflage was invented and designed by Norman Wilkinson. Always a fan of modern ships, Wadsworth was to use nautical themes in his art for the rest of his career.

The return to order[edit]

Heralded by the major painting Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool, 1919, Wadsworth moved away from the avant-garde in the 1920s, and adopted a more realistic style. Wadsworth was a member of Unit One. Towards the end of his life his work became increasingly strange and surreal, although Wadsworth never had any formal links with the official Surrealist movement.

Gravestone, Brompton Cemetery, London

Later life[edit]

Wadsworth died in 1949, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Influences[edit]

The graphic designer Peter Saville had seen Wadsworth's painting Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool and was struck by the image. After suggesting the idea and title to Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Saville carried the theme over to the sleeve design of their album Dazzle Ships (1983).

References[edit]

  1. ^ Distinguished old Fettesians
  2. ^ Wadsworth, Barbara Edward Wadsworth. A Painter's Life. Published by Michael Russell: Salisbury, 1989. Page 13.
  3. ^ Barbara Wadsworth (1989), page 22
  4. ^ Dorothy Wadsworth, 1989 page p.23
  5. ^ Essay on Wadsworth, Richard Cork, Oxford Art Online
  6. ^ Richard Ingleby 'Utterly Tired of Chaos' in C.R.W.Nevinson - The Twentieth Century' Merrell Holberton: London 1999, page 11
  7. ^ quoted by Ruth Artmonsky 'Slade Alumni 1900-1914' published Artmonsky Arts, 2001. page 3
  8. ^ Ruth Artmonsky, 2001 page 22
  9. ^ The Wadsworth work was added to the exhibition for the last month of the exhibition only
  10. ^ Anna Gruetzer Robins Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914 Merrell Holberton: London 1997. p.89
  11. ^ Breaking The Rules, Bury, British Library, p112
  12. ^ Cooper, Philip. Cubism. London: Phaidon, 1995, p. 104. ISBN 0714832502
  13. ^ Blast 1, Lewis et al., Bodley Head, 1914
  14. ^ "Vorticism". Edward Wadsworth. Vorticism.co.uk. Archived from the original on 17 February 2012. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  15. ^ Modernist Art in Camouflage Archived 29 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Dazzle Painting

Further reading[edit]

  • Black, Jonathan. (2006) Edward Wadsworth. I.B. Tauris.
  • Greenwood, Jeremy. (2002) The Graphic Work of Edward Wadsworth. Wood Lea Press.
  • Edward Wadsworth, in Behrens, Roy R., (2009) Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage. Bobolink Books.
  • LIT: Exhibition catalogue (1990) Camden Arts Centre.
  • Memorial Exhibition Catalogue, (1951) Tate Gallery.
  • Lewison, Jeremy (editor). (1990) A Genius of Industrial England; Edward Wadsworth 1889–1949. The Arkwright Arts Trust.
  • Wadsworth, Barbara. (1989) Edward Wadsworth. A Painter's Life. Michael Russell Publishing.

External links[edit]

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