Edward Wadsworth (1889 – 1949)

‘The Rhythm of Things’ - Painting and Drawings

 

Private View: Wednesday 27 September

Exhibition dates: 27 September – 21 October 2006

Gallery opening: Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm 

Saturday 10am – 2pm

 

 

Osborne Samuel will open this important exhibition of Edward Wadsworth’s work in September of this year. It is a significant exhibition of paintings and drawings by Wadsworth which span the period from 1907 to 1948 and has been organised in conjunction with the estate and Dr. Jonathan Black. We will also be launching the new catalogue raisonné Edward Wadsworth: Form, Feeling and Calculation – The Complete Paintings and Drawings by Dr. Jonathan Black, which was published this year. This new exhibition will provide an overview of Edward Wadsworth’s work and emphasises Osborne Samuel’s continued commitment to Modern British art. It follows on from the gallery’s acclaimed Nine Abstract Artists exhibition in 2005 and Peter Kinley: Paintings and Drawings in May of this year.

 

In his introduction to the eagerly anticipated Wadsworth exhibition at Tooth’s Gallery, London, in May 1929, Léonce Rosenberg, a leading champion of European artistic Modernism, wrote: ‘Wadsworth is not merely the name of a painter, but also of an event.’ It is a clear indication of how highly Wadsworth was regarded that Rosenberg, art critic, dealer and publisher of cutting edge Parisian art journal, the Bulletin de L’Effort Moderne, should refer to Edward Wadsworth in such glowing terms. The present exhibition should indeed be regarded as an ‘event’ – the first devoted to Wadsworth in the UK in over fifteen years. It provides an excellent opportunity to reassess an artist who played a leading role in the early Twentieth century revival of tempera painting, alongside Giorgio de Chirico and Gino Severini, was a key member of the major British avant-garde art movement of Vorticism and whose powerful and compelling contribution to pictorial abstraction won the admiration of such giants of European artistic modernism as Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, Theo van Doesburg and Wassily Kandinsky – most of whom were introduced to Wadsworth by Rosenberg in Paris during the late 1920’s.  

Dr. Jonathan Black (August 2006)

Dr. Jonathan Black will be giving a talk Visual Excitement and Delight: Edward Wadsworth and the Challenge of Modernism on Thursday 5 October at Osborne Samuel gallery. The talk is free and commences at 6:30pm. To reserve a place for the gallery talk or to order a copy of the catalogue raisonné or exhibition catalogue contact Lucy Tyler at the gallery: ltyler@osbornesamuel.com

 

 

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The Silent Shore, 1943

Tempera

61 x 71 cm

exhibited Tate Gallery, London February - March 1951 (48). Painted spring of 1943.