An Art Form for the Modern Age -- Magical Linocuts at Dulwich

There seems to have been a point about 90 years ago when many of the features of modern life were starting to become if not commonplace, then at least a lot more familiar: the radio, the telephone, aeroplanes, talking pictures, electric trains. And yet amid all that technological progress, an art school in Pimlico was showing that a less sophisticated medium could also be revolutionary.

At Dulwich Picture Gallery in south-east London, they're celebrating the emergence of the linocut as a serious art form. Between the wars, a group of artists captured speed and movement in vibrantly coloured prints that tell a story of rapid change. Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking features names you may never have heard of, but it's art that's hugely appealing.

The linocut was seen as a basic printmaking technique for children when Claude Flight set up his extremely informal Grosvenor School of Art in Pimlico in 1925. He regarded it as an egalitarian art form in keeping with progressive times. The linocut had no tradition of technique behind it, Flight wrote, so you could make your own tradition. It's Flight's work, and those of his staff and pupils, that we see at Dulwich, and one key member of staff was Cyril Power.

This print by Power brings together so many of the aspects of the Grosvenor School's work that we see in this excellent show: swirling patterns, repeated motifs in striking colours, a sense of action and a sensation of up-to-the-minuteness. This is The Tube Station, and if this platform is surprisingly empty, you can find plenty of hard-pressed commuters in other images by Power. Whence and Whither? sees a behatted throng heading down an escalator as if cascading down a waterfall, while the view down a packed Tube Train depicts two rows of opened newspapers and strap-hangers in the distance.

Those beguiling lines are also major features of the work of Sybil Andrews, who shared a home and studio with Power. This is her Concert Hall, with the balconies, rows of heads and triangles of shadow curving round in an evocation of modernist architecture.

Leisure pursuits were very much a feature of the work of the Grosvenor School: Legislation limiting working hours and growing prosperity for many (even in an age of rampant inequality) meant people had more time and money to enjoy themselves. Power takes us to the funfair for a ride on this riotously hued Merry-Go-Round.

Several Australian artists trained at the Grosvenor, and one of those we meet early on in this show is Ethel Spowers, who had a particular talent, it seems, for capturing images of urban life. Her father was a newspaper owner, and Special Edition gives us the motif of people devouring the latest breaking news from an expanse of newsprint, a splash of white that's repeated ad infinitum across the image.

In Wet Afternoon, that repeated motif is an umbrella, grey and white in the background but breaking into red and green close up, and perfectly capturing the misery of heavy rain on city streets.

The world of work was just as much a theme for these printmakers as the world of leisure, and some of the most striking images in this show are by a Swiss artist, Lill Tschudi. She made the technically complicated Fixing the Wires before she was 21. It's a picture that could equally have come from America or the Soviet Union in the 1930s.... though probably not as a linocut.

Sport offered perfect subject matter for the Grosvenor School: dynamic, colourful, modern. Power and Andrews lived in Brook Green, not far from the Thames, where they could see rowers out training and competing. Power's print The Eight captures the speed and strength of the oarsmen as they power their way up the river, emerging from under the bridge on which he was standing.

The Impressionists gave us rowing too, of course, but they never gave us Speedway. The sport featuring motorcycles with one gear and no brakes racing round an oval track was first seen in Britain in 1928. This linocut by Andrews is considered by many to be her best.

And sport takes us back to the Underground, because Power and Andrews collaborated to produce a series of posters under the signature Andrew Power. This was avant-garde advertising for London's transport network.

This is a really attractive and informative show, and as so often at Dulwich, it brings to a wider public art that the average gallery-goer will be largely unaware of. Highly recommended.

Practicalities

Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking runs at Dulwich Picture Gallery until September 8. It's open from 1000 to 1700 from Tuesdays to Sundays and tickets cost £16.50, which also covers entry to the permanent collection. You save £1.50 if you book online, which you can do here. The gallery is about 10 minutes' walk from both West Dulwich station, for trains from Victoria, and North Dulwich station, for trains from London Bridge.

Images

Cyril Power, The Tube Station, c. 1932, Private Collection. Photo Osborne Samuel Gallery, London/© The Estate of Cyril Power. All Rights Reserved, 2019/Bridgeman Images
Sybil Andrews, Concert Hall, 1929, Private Collection. © The Estate of Sybil Andrews/Photo Osborne Samuel Gallery, London

Cyril Power, The Merry-Go-Round, c. 1930. © The Estate of Cyril Power. All Rights Reserved, 2019/Bridgeman Images/Photo The Wolfsonian–Florida International University

Ethel Spowers, Wet Afternoon, 1929-30. Photo Osborne Samuel, London/© The Estate of Ethel Spowers 

Lill Tschudi, Fixing the Wires, 1932, Private Collection
Cyril Power, The Eight, 1930, Private Collection. © The Estate of Cyril Power. All Rights Reserved, 2019/ Bridgeman Images/Photo © Elijah Taylor (Brick City Projects)
Sybil Andrews, Speedway, 1934, Private Collection. Photo Osborne Samuel, London/© The Estate of Sybil Andrews
Andrew Power, Wimbledon, 1933. © The Estate of Cyril Power. All Rights Reserved, 2019/Bridgeman Images/© The Estate of Sybil Andrews © TfL from the London Transport Museum Collection