London, Modernism, and 1914

Michael J. K. Walsh is Associate Professor of Art History at the Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus.

"Readers of London, Modernism, and 1914 will be well equipped to survey the artistic, literary, cultural, and historical forces converging on modernism on the cusp of the war. This admirably conceived collection of ten essays centers on 1914 as an extraordinary year—not only because of the war’s outbreak, but also because of the unprecedented “cultural dynamism” in Britain during the months leading up to August 4.....As Cork observes in his foreword, we can credit artists rather than generals for foretelling the conditions and consequences of the war, and this observation highlights the significance of the works examined by Walsh and his contributors. Lest we lose sight of those larger human consequences, though, we should note that the book concludes with an appendix including three letters from and about Walter Henry (“Harry”) Walsh, Michael Walsh’s granduncle (who died on the Somme, and to whom the book is dedicated).The sheer number of Great War casualties can unfortunately have a paradoxically numbing effect on our ability to comprehend an historical event that through its enormity defies representation. The poignantly detailed human specificity with which this book begins and ends, however -with Harry Walsh’s photograph and firsthand accounts of his wounding and death- serves as a salutary reminder of the aims that can be served by such art and literature as that studied in this timely and compelling volume." -MARK D. LARABEE, U.S. Naval Academy

• Foreword Richard Cork; Introduction Michael J. K. Walsh; 1. 'A campaign of extermination': Walter Sickert and modernism in London in 1914 Jon Shirland; 2. W. B. Yeats in 1914: a cosmopolitan modernist and the 'great menace' of Nationalism Louise Blakeney Williams; 3. Jacob Epstein's Rock Drill: man and machine Andrew Causey; 4. Conflict 'Resolution': Wyndham Lewis's Blasts at war David A. Wragg; 5. 'Something is happening there': Early British modernism, the Great War and the 'Whitechapel Boys' Sarah MacDougall; 6. Inventing literary modernism at the outbreak of the Great War Pericles Lewis; 7. 'Touching civilisation in its tender mood': nationalism and art in the friendship between Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Edward Wadsworth, 1914–15 Jonathan Black; 8. Remembrance/reconstruction: autobiography and the men of 1914 Deborah Parsons; 9. From 'freak pictures' to no art: art exhibitions in London 1914 through the eyes of the critics Dominika Buchowska; 10. Rewriting 1914: the Slade, Tonks, and war in Pat Barker's Life Class Alan Munton; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.