Bradford: View of a Town

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

1914 · Woodcut on gray paper · Drawings and Prints

In a posthumous tribute to Wadsworth, Wyndham Lewis, the artist, writer, and a founder of Vorticism, described an interwar visit the two took to Yorkshire. Lewis wrote that, from their vantage point at the top of a hill, Wadsworth pointed to the town of Halifax below: "We gazed down into its blackened labyrinth. I could see he was proud of it. ‘It’s like Hell, isn’t it?’ he said enthusiastically." Bradford, depicted here, is about five miles from Cleckheaton, where Wadsworth grew up and where his family’s mill was located. The sharpness of the image reflects the precision his learned from his studies of machine draftsmanship in Munich. As in other works, Wadsworth adopted an elevated, almost aerial view, which, combined with the reductive angular forms and the rigor of the design, creates a nearly abstract image.

Artist

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

Date

1914

Medium

Woodcut on gray 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