Yorkshire Village

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

1914 · Woodcut · Drawings and Prints

Wadsworth was greatly inspired by the industrial landscape found in West Yorkshire, an area he knew from his childhood. Works such as Yorkshire Village use an abstract, reductive vocabulary based on faceted geometric forms that recalls early Cubist landscapes by Picasso and Braque. Wadsworth simplified the composition considerably, capturing spare architectural details such as chimneys and roofs of factories and buildings in the valley below, made more dramatic by his elevated viewpoint. Yorkshire Village is one of Wadsworth’s first color woodcuts. The combination of different colors allowed him to explore a range of possibilities while maintaining the stark, impersonal quality he sought with woodcut. The inscription "Heptonstall" refers to the West Yorkshire town; Wadsworth frequently wrote below his images the names of places where, and even the dates of when, he made designs for woodcuts.

Artist

Edward Alexander Wadsworth

Date

1914

Medium

Woodcut

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