Riponelli: A Village in Lemnos

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

1917 · Woodcut printed with light blue, gray, and black ink on gray paper · Drawings and Prints

After training at a gun station in Britain, Wadsworth sailed to the Eastern Mediterranean and was based on the Greek island of Lemnos, where he analyzed aerial reconnaissance photographs. He also created drawings that he would develop into woodcuts upon returning home in late 1917. Riponelli: A Village in Lemnos recalls Wadsworth’s earlier woodcuts (especially Yorkshire Village), yet unlike these Vorticist pieces, it was not inspired by industrial landscapes but rather the Mediterranean environment and its "warships and volcanos," as Wadsworth noted in a letter to Wyndham Lewis. Here, he depicted stone houses stacked on a hilly terrain. Wadsworth experimented with colored inks and papers in a variety of combinations to produce different visual effects and sensations.

Artist

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

Date

1917

Medium

Woodcut printed with light blue, gray, and black ink 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