Cyril Power 1872-1951
Architect, painter, etcher, colour linocut, and monotype artist. Having been awarded the Sloane Medallion by the RIBA in 1900, Power was involved in his own family’s architectural practice as well as working with Sir Richard Allington at the Ministry of Works in 1905. Power then worked as a lecturer at University College, London. In 1912 he published a three-volume work, History of English Mediaeval Architecture ‘, illustrated with his own drawings. During The First World War he flew with the RFC. In 1916 he designed and executed a War Memorial for the Great Western Railway at Paddington, London. In the early 1920s he made the first of some forty drypoints and produced a large number of watercolour landscapes and town scapes.... read more
Architect, painter, etcher, colour linocut, and monotype artist. Having been awarded the Sloane Medallion by the RIBA in 1900, Power was involved in his own family’s architectural practice as well as working with Sir Richard Allington at the Ministry of Works in 1905. Power then worked as a lecturer at University College, London. In 1912 he published a three-volume work, History of English Mediaeval Architecture ‘, illustrated with his own drawings. During The First World War he flew with the RFC. In 1916 he designed and executed a War Memorial for the Great Western Railway at Paddington, London. In the early 1920s he made the first of some forty drypoints and produced a large number of watercolour landscapes and town scapes.
In 1923 he recommenced study at Heatherley’s and in 1925 helped Iain Macnab set up the Grosvenor School of Art. Whilst teaching Architecture at the Grosvenor School Power and other, now famous, print makers studied linocutting under Claude Flight. Architecture is the subject of his early linocuts: At Lavenham (c1928), and Westminster Cathedral (c.1928), but with The Escalator and The Merry-go-round (both c1929) the Vorticist interest in speed and movement can be seen. He was the most important of the Grosvenor School artists: The Tube Staircase , Brooklands and Speed Trial (1929-32) the latter of which was of Sir Malcolm Cambell’s recordbreaking car Bluebird ; are amongst his best works.
Although Claude Flight was undoubtably Britain’s main exponent of the linocut between the wars, press reviews of the time indicate that Power and his colleague, Sybil Andrews, attracted far more attention than any of the other Grovsvenor School artists. Power and Andrews formed an informal partnership that led to a series of posters for the London Underground; all of which were signed Andrew Power.
From 1929 Power was involved with group exhibitions instigated by Claude Flight at the Redfern Gallery and the Ward Gallery. 1933 saw the first major joint exhibition of work by Power and Andrews at the Redfern Gallery.
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