Dawn at Southwark

Artist Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 - 1946)

Date1919

MediumLithograph on paper

Dimensions42 x 51.5 cm

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by Christopher Richard Wyne Nevinson (the Artist).

Object number435

DescriptionThis is a planographic print (lithograph) on paper depicting an urban river scene. It has a strong influence of futurism with the strong diagonal lines giving a sense of movement and dynamism.

Christopher Wynne Nevinson was a modernist and something of an outsider. His family background was bohemian, his mother was a Suffragette and his father, Henry Nevinson, though a pacifist, was a noted war correspondent. Nevinson studied at the Slade from 1908 to 1912 and then in Paris where he shared a studio with Modigliani, met Picasso and became acquainted with Cubist techniques, which were a vital part of his own art until 1917. Whilst in Paris, he also encountered the Italian Futurist artists, Gino Severini and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. When he returned to London in 1913, he became involved with Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists and then adopted Futurism. Although he was rejected by the Army as unfit, he immediately joined the Belgian Red Cross. During 1915-16 he produced a series of paintings based on his experience as an ambulance driver in France, using his own hybrid of Futurist and Cubist techniques. The success of the painting, La Mitrailleuse (the Machine Gun) and other war paintings led the Leicester Galleries to offer Nevinson a one-man show in the autumn of 1916 which was admired by public and critics alike. However, Nevinson’s war experience made him realise the tragedy and futility of war. By 1919 he had forsaken Futurism and opted instead to a much more tradition style although his paintings of New York City show elements of Futurism married with a more naturalistic style. In later life, his focus changed to pastoral scenes and flower pieces that reflect a more serene mood.

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson was born in Britain. He attended St John's Wood School of Art 1907-8, the Slade School 1908-12 and the Academie Julian, Paris, 1912-13, where he shared a studio with Modigliani, worked at the Cercle Russe and made friends with Severini. Interested in Cubism and Futurism, he was one of the first English artists to be deeply influenced by new developments in Europe at that time; his work was included in the Post-Impressionists and Futurists exhibition at the Dore Gallery in 1913.

During World War I, he served in France for the Red Cross and the Royal Army Medical Corps. His experiences during the war became a primary subject for his work. These unpleasant interpretations of trench warfare were acclaimed at his solo exhibition, held in 1916 at the Leicester Galleries in London. Nevinson returned to France in 1917 and began working as an Official War Artist and a year, he held another one-man exhibition in London. After the war, he abandoned Futurism and began creating more traditional work.

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