Untitled ('The Rock Driller')
Maker
(artist)
1885-1963
1885-1963
Title
Untitled ('The Rock Driller')
Date of Production
(circa) 1913
Medium
traces of graphite, black ink (with added oil?) and bodycolour on wove paper
Dimensions
Height: 9.9 cm
Width: 13.2 cm
Width: 13.2 cm
Accession Number
D.2016.XX.10
Mode of Acquisition
Brigid Peppin, gift, 2016
Credit
The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Copyright
© Estate of Helen Saunders
Location
Not currently on display
Keywords
Label Text
The right-hand figure in this small but powerful drawing resembles a sculpture by Jacob Epstein called 'The Rock Drill' (1913), of which Saunders was surely aware. Although the brutish male figure in Saunders’s drawing seems to echo Epstein’s, the dancing female figure acts as a joyful counterbalance to the grimly mechanistic driller. She may be a sly feminist riposte to the machine-worship of many of the male artists who gathered under the banner of Vorticism.
Provenance
with the artist until her death in 1963; bequeathed to her sister, Ethel Saunders; bequeathed to her first cousin once removed, Helen Peppin, 1971; given to her daughter, Brigid Peppin, 1989; offered by her as a gift and part-purchase to the Samuel Courtauld Trust, 2016
Exhibition History
Praxitella: Wyndham Lewis, Helen Saunders and Iris Barry, Leeds Art Gallery, 22/06/2023-05/11/2023
Drawings Gallery Display - Helen Saunders, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/10/2022-29/01/2023
Helen Saunders (1885-1963), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 09/01/1996-03/03/1996; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 16/03/1996-20/04/1996
Drawings Gallery Display - Helen Saunders, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/10/2022-29/01/2023
Helen Saunders (1885-1963), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 09/01/1996-03/03/1996; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 16/03/1996-20/04/1996
Literature
Peppin, Brigid, and Cork, Richard, Helen Saunders (1885-1963), exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Graves Art Gallery ,Sheffield, 1996
pp. 11-12, 44
Fig. p. p. 35
pp. 11-12, 44
Fig. p. p. 35
Inscriptions
Watermark: Watermark: none.
Inscription: none.
Collector's mark: none.
Inscription: none.
Collector's mark: none.
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