Vorticist composition, black and white [large]

Maker

(artist)
1885-1963

Title

Date of Production

(circa) 1915

Medium

graphite and black ink on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 23 cm
Width: 30.5 cm

Accession Number

D.2016.XX.19

Mode of Acquisition

Brigid Peppin, gift, 2016

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

This bold monochrome composition is one of Saunders’s few entirely abstract works. The sharp angles and heavy lines crackle with the jagged energy of a lightning bolt. Despite the abstract approach, the shapes curling around the central void evoke the jaws of a fantastical beast or machine. Like many Vorticist works, it seems to allude to the violence of war.

The ink stains and partial erasures indicate that this is a working drawing. It relates to an illustration that appears in the second volume of BLAST, the Vorticists’ short-lived journal.

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

Courtauld Connects Regional Programme: The Artful Line: Drawings from the Harris collection and The Courtauld Gallery, The Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, 15/02/2020-18/10/2020 ...More

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 ...Less

Literature

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

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: none.

Collector's mark: none.

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