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9 had persuaded him to take up the medium as: 'the easiest things in the world' which Nevinson reflected it was far from being though he readily acknowledged its 'many intricacies' were 'utterly addictive.' Examples included in his successful April-May 1927 solo exhibition, held at Reid and Lefevre in London, were the enigmatic Manette Street (1926-27) and From Waterloo Bridge (1924-26) in which the aquatint has been beautifully controlled to powerfully convey the sensation of a bright sun finally managing to dramatically penetrate the murk cast by a dense London pea-souper fog. He would exploit the etched medium to quieter effect as he explored the attractions of the English countryside – especially of the Home Counties – which in the 1920's were being increasingly marketed as desirable destinations for a new and growing middle class market of visitors. This could encompass the nocturnal charms of Thames Ditton in Sunday Evening (1925-27) – during the 1920's he often stayed on a house boat there owned by his wealthy eccentric friend Oswald Greene – or, the airy and sun-filled A Valley in the South Downs (1926-27), a composition that evidently owes much to the example of Rembrandt in the early seventeenth century and to the late eighteenth century English landscape tradition of Thomas Girtin, John Crome the Elder and Paul Sandby. Again and again, however, he returned to smoke-infused London and the Thames in the centre of the city along which he would walk after a convivial dinner at his club the Savage – to which Nevinson was elected early in 1927 and which was based until 1936 in the Adam-designed Adelphi area off the Strand – Westminster from a Savoy Window (1924) and Westminster from the Savage Club (1928), or a mysterious Leicester Square (1927), almost lost in darkness, which he still liked to frequent for its selection of remaining music halls. For much of the 1920's Nevinson was regularly referred to as one of Britain's most sought after and talented of the younger printmakers that included Laura Knight, Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, Paul Nash and Henry Rushbury. He was also frequently featured in lists alongside those who had been making prints for much longer than he, such as Muirhead Bone, James McBey and David Young Cameron and who were able to command £150-200 for one of their etchings whereas Nevinson rarely sold his for more than £5-10. However, in October 1929 the hitherto buoyant British print market promptly collapsed in the wake of the sudden, calamitous New York Stock A Valley in the South Downs, 1926-7 Page 39

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