Cutting edge …
Jessica Dismorr was a participant in every forward-thinking artists’ movement going in Edwardian Britain. This 1911 woodcut was created for the Rhythm group to illustrate their magazine dedicated to art, music and literature, whose contributors included Katherine Mansfield and DH Lawrence.
Draped crusader …
It depicts the revolutionary modern dancer Isadora Duncan in her signature Greek tunic. Duncan had metaphorically thrown off the ballet corset and fused ancient dance forms, modern athleticism and her own notions of natural movement into a new kind of dance.
Flow chart …
Dismorr captures her liberated rhythms in alternating black and white, using the white of the paper itself, with the lines of her body and wing-like raised arms reflecting the folds of the stage curtain.
Keeping time …
Dismorr was interested in new ideas about our existence in time, its repetitions and variations, which dance could so visibly demonstrate.
