Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889-1946), From Waterloo Bridge, drypoint, aquatint, plate tone, 1925, signed in pencil lower right, from the edition of 40. In very good condition (very slight tone); on cream wove with margins, 11 x 6 15/16, the sheet 14 3/8 x 9 1/2 inches, archival matting.

A fine atmospheric impression.

Nevinson apparently achieved the brilliant effect of moonlight on the Thames through the use of aquatint and careful wiping of the plate, as well as drypoint.

Traditionally it’s thought that Nevinson became disillusioned with modernist movements after the War, and renounced the futurism and cubism which illuminated his pre-War work. But his evolution is far more complex than that. In From Waterloo Bridge there is the immediate sense that Nevinson is reverting to the pictorial framework set out by Whistler, and also appears to be revisiting an enduring Whistlerian theme: the night subjects, especially the lithotints of  the Thames. But he does that and more: his dynamic patterning of the glow of the moonlight on the water, and the brilliance of his overall composition could only have achieved after his working through earlier stages of cubism, abstraction, and futurism.

A fine bright impression of this iconic image.

Making the Engine was issued by Britain’s Office of the Ministry of Information in a 6 lithograph publication entitled Building Aircraft – The Great War: Britain’s Efforts and Ideals. This is from the edition of 200 signed sets.

Nevinson had of course been influenced by the Italian Futurist movement, and his appointment as Official War Artist enabled him to use this idiom to illustrate the great technological achievements undergirding modern warfare in a dynamic, modernist way. Whatever the merits of the technology and the war – and by 1917 Nevinson was thoroughly disillusioned with war and increasingly with modernism itself – Nevinson’s cubist/futurist portrayals have become monuments to British modernism.