Lot 213: Edward Alexander Wadsworth (1889-1949)

Edward Alexander Wadsworth (1889-1949)
S.S. Jerseymoor (Colnaghi catalogue 130)
woodcut, 1918, on Japan paper, a strong impression of this rare woodcut, signed, dated and titled in black ink, pale mount-staining, foxing in the margins, extreme edges of the uneven margins stuck down, otherwise in good condition, framed
B. 119 x 213 mm., S. 198 x 270 mm.

In 1917 Edward Wadsworth was hired to oversee the application of 'dazzle' patterning to ships in the Liverpool and Bristol dockyards. Dazzle camouflage was devised as a means of frustrating the attempts of German U-boat commanders to calculate the exact course and speed of an allied merchantman. By breaking up the outline of the hull with irregular patterns painted in stark colours, a ship became more difficult to target accurately, reducing its chances of a direct and fatal hit by torpedo. During 1918 nearly 2500 ships were being painted at any one time and the results of this dazzle camoflage were successful to the war effort and something to which Wadsworth was very proud.
For a vorticist artist these 'dazzle' ships with their cubist informed patterning were an obvious subject matter. In 'S.S. Jerseymoor' Wadsworth created a pictorial equivalent of the 'dazzle', conflating the diverging diagonals of the barrels in the foreground with the striped ship, rigging, warehouses and cranes in the middle-distance. The result is dynamic and visually disorientating, perhaps not too dissimilar in effect to the view of a dazzled ship glimpsed from a U-boat periscope.