Stanley Cursiter

I came across this little known Vorticist (well he tried it for a few paintings) in the Aberdeen Art Museum.

The Sensation of Crossing the Street (1913)

Text from the exhibition:

“This hectic scene of people and trams rushing through one of the main thoroughfares of Edinburgh, the junction of Shandwick Place, Lothian Road and Queensferry Street, may seem like an impossible dream to current residents of this city, but for Stanley Cursiter in 1913 this location offered a golden opportunity to put the newest movement in art – Vorticism – to the test. The Vorticists tried to capture a sense of movement and to show modern life in a dynamic way, using bold lines and vibrant colours. Cursiter has broken up the composition into blocks of colour, all of which are patterned in one direction, so as to suggest speed and movement.

Cursiter produced just a few Vorticist paintings, quickly abandoning the style and moving to a more realistic idiom, which he developed in numerous portraits and in landscape paintings of his home, the Orkney Islands. However today it is his very rare Vorticist works that are most highly prized.”