Author Description

Cyril E. Power (1872-1951) was a leading member of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London in the 1920s and 1930s under the inspirational leadership of Claude Flight. Flight's Grosvenor School artists were responsible for the remarkable rise of the colour linocut print during this period, and their significance as a major contribution to modern British art between the wars has not yet been fully and widely appreciated. This book assesses Cyril Power's achievement as a dynamic avant-garde printmaker, and shows how in his work the potential of linocut printmaking as a semi-abstract language was realised to an impressively original degree.It is the first book to establish Power as an extraordinarily creative printmaker in his own right, cataloguing and illustrating in colour for the first time all 46 of his linocuts. Philip Vann traces the many sources for Power's work: the linocuts of the German Expressionists, the inspiring influence of the Italian Futurists, Vorticist prints and paintings, and works by Mark Gertler, Frantisek Kupka and Duchamp, as well as contemporary literature and film. "Cyril Power Linocuts" will be an essential resource for all those with a specialist or amateur interest in the vibrant prints of this period.