Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1541633
B orn in Hampstead, North London on 13th August 1889, Nevinson studied at the St. John's Wood School of Art (1907 – 08), before moving to the Slade (1908 - 1912), where he studied under the renowned Professor of Drawing, Henry Tonks. He then studied in Paris at the Academie Julien (1912 – 17) and also studied at the Circle Russe. In Paris, Nevinson shared a studio with Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920) and became influenced by Cubism. Heavily influenced by the Italian Futurist movement Nevinson drew inspiration from the modern city with its new machines and modes of transport. Nevinson first exhibited in London in 1910 and became a founder member of the London Group, formerly the Camden Town Group, in 1913, exhibiting with Walter Sickert, Camille Pissarro, Edward Wadsworth, David Bomberg, Sylvia Gosse and Paul Nash. In 1915 the Vorticists held their only group show at the Dore Gallery. Developed by Wyndham Lewis from ideas of the Futurists, of whom he was highly critical, the movement included Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein, William Roberts, David Bomberg and Christopher Nevinson. During the First World War Nevinson spent many weeks in France with the FAU (French Army Unit) and the British Red Cross Society, mostly working at a disused goods shed by Dunkirk rail station known as the Shambles. By 1917 he was appointed an Official War Artist where he produced some of the most powerful images of the First World War, solidifying his place as one of the most important artists of the day. Although Nevinson is celebrated as a war artist, his other great subject was the city. Crowds interested him and, in the same year as this pastel, he made two large lithographs – e Workers and Wet Evening, Oxford Street – in which hordes of people move cheek by jowl. e commotion of life in post-war London and, a little later, the modern city of Jazz Age New York became his inspiration. In e Street Acrobat, the performer's contortions on the wet cobblestones appear to be of little interest to the men and women queuing, who look away and are wrapped in their raincoats. is early Nevinson work on paper was exhibited in the Imperial War Museum's major 2000 show, C.R.W. Nevinson: e Twentieth Century, which travelled to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, USA. e catalogue entry remarks; e empty shop windows of e Food Queue [collection of e Imperial War Museum, London] are replaced by the provocative spectacle of the acrobat. Nevinson – who was passionate about the theatre, loved the Moulin Rouge and enjoyed the company of clowns – appreciates the performance whereas the crowd largely ignore it. 1 C.R.W.Nevinson (1889-1946) 1. (R. Ingleby, J. Black et al, C.R.W. Nevinson, e Twentieth Century, Imperial War Museum, London, 2000, p. 168) 7