Brooklands

Claude Flight’s linocuts of the 1920s and 1930s capture the energy and excitement of living in a new era, one transformed by technology. The speed of motorcars and trains became the subject of a new kind
of ‘modern’ art. Flight’s sensitivity to the mechanical age was perhaps sharpened by the contrast with his first vocation – that of a farmer and bee keeper. The bold abstract shapes, repetitive forms and bright colours were a dramatic departure from the monochromatic prints created by artists before the First World War.

Flight championed the humble and accessible medium of linoleum, which was soft and easy to carve. His charismatic teaching at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London (1926–31), along with exhibitions of his work and his writings on linocuts – including A Hand-Book of Linoleum-Cut Colour Printing (1927) – popularised the medium. Flight’s bold compositions and inventive approach inspired followers from around the world, including the Australian artists, Dorrit Black and Ethel Spowers.

Brooklands, one of Flight’s best-known prints, depicts a motor race at the Brooklands track, near Weybridge outside London.

Maria Zagala, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs