Newcastle
Wadsworth was born in the flourishing northern industrial town of Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, to a family who had grown wealthy from their textile mills. In order to manage these mills, in 1906, he went to Munich to study mechanical draftsmanship and German. Instead, Wadsworth became interested in art, which he continued to pursue once back in Britain. Named for the northern British port, Newcastle, his first known print, reflects his training in mechanical illustration and woodcut as well as the Vorticist interest in industrialization and modernity. Wadsworth monumentalized the cold, hard features of the factory’s tools and equipment—such as the sawtooth and zigzag forms—to evoke the superhuman power of the machine and his family’s business. The image was reproduced in 1914 in the first issue of the Vorticist journal BLAST, in which a manifesto declared "Bless England, Industrial Island machine, pyramidal workshop."
Artwork Details
- Title: Newcastle
- Artist: Edward Alexander Wadsworth (British, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire 1889–1949)
- Date: 1913
- Medium: Woodcut on colored paper
- Dimensions: Sheet: 9 3/4 × 9 3/4 in. (24.8 × 24.8 cm)
Image: 5 1/2 × 3 15/16 in. (14 × 10 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Purchase, Leslie and Johanna Garfield Gift, Lila Acheson Wallace, Charles and Jessie Price, and David T Schiff Gifts, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, Dolores Valvidia Hurlburt Bequest, PECO Foundation and Friends of Drawings and Prints Gifts, and funds from various donors, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.592.298
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Edward Alexander Wadsworth
ca. 1918
Edward Alexander Wadsworth
1914
Edward Alexander Wadsworth
ca. 1914
Edward Alexander Wadsworth
1918
Edward Alexander Wadsworth
1919
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