Exhibition

Between Modernism and Tradition: British Works on Paper, 1914-1948

Name: Between Modernism and Tradition: British Works on Paper, 1914-1948 | The Huntington
Location: The Huntington

This exhibition of about two dozen drawings, watercolors, and prints, drawn from The Huntington's collections, explores the great range of artistic styles employed by British artists through a period of dramatic social upheaval and change.

Edward Burra (British, 1905-1976), Blues for Ruby Matrix, ca. 1934, gouache and ink over graphite on paper laid on board.

John Piper (British, 1903-1992), Old Chapel of Hall Farm, Bodnick, Fowey, Cornwall, 1943, watercolor, gouache, and ink with blue chalk and graphite on paper.

Gwen John (British, 1876-1939), Rue Terre Nueve, Meudon, ca. 1920, watercolor over pencil on paper.

Christopher Richard Wynn Nevinson (British, 1889-1946), Bar in Marseilles, 1921, black crayon on paper mounted on board.

Paul Nash (British, 1889-1946), Study for Dead Spring, 1929, graphite on paper.

William Roberts (British, 1895-1980), Execution in a Canyon, ca. 1918-19, watercolor and wash with ink over graphite on paper.

Edward Wadsworth (British, 1889-1949), Street Singers, ca. 1914, ink on wove paper.

John Minton (British, 1917-1957), Derelict Farm Machinery, 1948, pen and black ink and watercolor, with touches of white heightening.

Early 20th-century modernism in Britain drew its inspiration from avant-garde art movements in France, Germany, and Italy (especially Cubism and Futurism), though it took on its own idiosyncratic forms, the best known of which was Vorticism, a dynamic style of jarring colors and bold lines that embraced modernity and the machine age. But Britain’s hold on modernism was more fragile than in continental Europe, and the tension between tradition and the avant-garde (signified particularly by a resistance to abstraction) was more pronounced there. This exhibition of about two dozen drawings, watercolors, and prints, drawn from The Huntington’s collections, explores the great range of artistic styles employed by British artists through a period of dramatic social upheaval and change.