Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality

This article looks closely at the life and career of the avant-garde sculptor and painter Lawrence Atkinson (1873-1931) as a way to reconsider from a new angle at least three persistent clichés about Vorticism (that it was unmusical, that it was stopped by the First World War, and that its members f...

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Main Author: Waddell, Nathan
Format: Article
Published: Johns Hopkins University Press 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28804/
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author Waddell, Nathan
author_facet Waddell, Nathan
author_sort Waddell, Nathan
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This article looks closely at the life and career of the avant-garde sculptor and painter Lawrence Atkinson (1873-1931) as a way to reconsider from a new angle at least three persistent clichés about Vorticism (that it was unmusical, that it was stopped by the First World War, and that its members formed a cohesive ‘group’); to establish more firmly an almost entirely unappreciated trajectory within post-war British sculpture, one running from Atkinson’s early interactions with the British Rhythmists to his encounters with Vorticism and beyond; and to re-examine what Matthew Hofer has called the ‘decidedly radical’ early twentieth-century project of non-institutional education focusing on ‘interdisciplinarity through the interaction of the arts’, a project to which Atkinson made a symbolically important contribution. The article suggests that Atkinson deserves a more visible place in histories of avant-garde, inter-disciplinary artistic instruction, and attempts to reclaim Atkinson as a subject worthy of critical scrutiny by showing his importance as a musician and teacher, roles that shaped and benefited from his career as a sculptor in important ways.
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spelling nottingham-288042020-05-04T18:09:06Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28804/ Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality Waddell, Nathan This article looks closely at the life and career of the avant-garde sculptor and painter Lawrence Atkinson (1873-1931) as a way to reconsider from a new angle at least three persistent clichés about Vorticism (that it was unmusical, that it was stopped by the First World War, and that its members formed a cohesive ‘group’); to establish more firmly an almost entirely unappreciated trajectory within post-war British sculpture, one running from Atkinson’s early interactions with the British Rhythmists to his encounters with Vorticism and beyond; and to re-examine what Matthew Hofer has called the ‘decidedly radical’ early twentieth-century project of non-institutional education focusing on ‘interdisciplinarity through the interaction of the arts’, a project to which Atkinson made a symbolically important contribution. The article suggests that Atkinson deserves a more visible place in histories of avant-garde, inter-disciplinary artistic instruction, and attempts to reclaim Atkinson as a subject worthy of critical scrutiny by showing his importance as a musician and teacher, roles that shaped and benefited from his career as a sculptor in important ways. Johns Hopkins University Press 2016-09-30 Article PeerReviewed Waddell, Nathan (2016) Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality. Modernism/modernity, 1 (3). ISSN 1071-6068 (In Press) Lawrence Atkinson sculpture https://modernismmodernity.org/articles/lawrence-atkinson-sculpture-and-vorticist-multimediality
spellingShingle Lawrence Atkinson
sculpture
Waddell, Nathan
Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title_full Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title_fullStr Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title_full_unstemmed Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title_short Lawrence Atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
title_sort lawrence atkinson, sculpture, and vorticist multimediality
topic Lawrence Atkinson
sculpture
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28804/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28804/