Vorticist composition with figures, black and white

Copyright

© Estate of Helen Saunders
Image: Courtauld
ⓒ Work in copyright. All rights reserved.

Maker

(artist)
1885-1963

Title

Vorticist composition with figures, black and white

Date of Production

(circa) 1915

Medium

graphite and black ink on wove paper, squared in graphite, the central circle cut out from a separate sheet and glued down

Dimensions

Height: 25.4 cm
Width: 17.8 cm

Object Number

D.2016.XX.18

Mode of Acquisition

Brigid Peppin, purchase, 2016

Credit

Courtauld Gallery, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

A group of tiny figures appears trapped in a dark, confined space. The circle at centre, cut from a separate piece of paper and pasted down, is one of the earliest examples of the collage technique in British modernism. It is unclear whether the blocky white forms are humans or machines; it is equally unclear whether the figures below are at their mercy or rising up in revolt.

By 1915 the horrors of mechanised warfare were well known. This drawing appears to be Saunders’s most explicit response to the violence of the First World War.

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Verso: upper centre, graphite: an arrow pointing up.

Collector's mark: none.

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

Drawings Gallery Display - Helen Saunders, Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/10/2022-29/01/2023
Drawings Gallery Display - Pen to Brush: British Drawings and Watercolours, Courtauld Gallery, London, 18/11/2021-28/02/2022
...More
Radical Women: Jessica Dismorr and her Contemporaries, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 02/11/2019-23/02/2020
The Vorticists. Manifesto for a Modern World, Tate Britain, London, 14/06/2011-04/09/2011
Blast, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, 18/08/1996-03/11/1996; Haus der Kunst, Munich, 15/11/1996-26/01/1997
Helen Saunders (1885-1963), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 09/01/1996-03/03/1996; Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, 16/03/1996-20/04/1996
Vorticism and its allies, Hayward Gallery, London, 27/03/1974-02/06/1974
...Less

Literature

Peppin, Brigid, and Cork, Richard, Helen Saunders (1885-1963), exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Graves Art Gallery ,Sheffield, 1996
pp. 13, 45
ill. on p. 14

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