Three Speeds

Claude Flight

ca. 1922 · Color linocut on Japanese paper · Drawings and Prints

Three Speeds is closely related to Flight's linocut Speed, which was made the same year; in both works, Flight portrayed a quotidian experience of urban living—that of commuting—and endowed it with modernist qualities. Here, the celebrated double-decker bus is more streamlined than in Speed, reduced to alternating stripes of red and white, with signage and other distractions eliminated. Its sleekness and size convey a sense of motion (or its potential) and efficiency in moving large groups of people, even though only the driver is shown and the bus appears to be stopped. Gathered on the street are small groups of people, presumably awaiting transportation. As the lines they fall into recede into the distance, their forms become increasingly reductive, creating a sense of anonymity and interchangeability.

Artist

Claude Flight

Date

ca. 1922

Medium

Color linocut on Japanese paper

Department

Drawings and 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