Helen Saunders: Modernist Rebel

This welcome catalogue accompanies The Courtauld's display of the work of Helen Saunders (1885–1963), the first monographic exhibition devoted to the artist in over 25 years. After years of obscurity, Helen Saunders: Modernist Rebel reconsiders her work as an important part of the story of British modernism. One of the first British artists to pursue abstraction, Saunders was one of only two women to join the Vorticists, the radical but short-lived art movement that emerged in London on the eve of the First World War. Her extraordinary drawings capture both the dynamism of modern urban life and the horrors of mechanised warfare. Following the war, she turned her back on Vorticism and pursued her own path, working in a more figurative style. Due in part to the loss of a significant portion of her oeuvre, including all of her Vorticist oil paintings, this remarkable artist fell into obscurity. Only in recent years has her work begun to be rediscovered and celebrated as an important