For years, prints inherited from her parents hung in Uglow’s house, enjoyed but not actively considered. This book is a result of Uglow’s research into Cyril Power, who created The Eight print, and his partner for his most artistically productive years, Sybil Andrews, who made Bringing In the Boat.

By focusing on the story of two artists primarily remembered (if at all) for their linocuts, Uglow opens up the avant-garde artistic world in London between 1920 and 1940, most of which has now been forgotten. Uglow narrates the lives and describes the art of Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power, most active between 1925, when they formed part of the “Grosvenor School”, to 1938. I had heard of neither before reading this book, but have a general interest in the inter-war period, having read several social histories. This book enlarged my understanding of the period.
Initially providing twin biographies, the book starts slowly by alternating between Sybil’s and Cyril’s stories, building the lives of the two individuals prior to their meeting in 1919 when Sybil is twenty one and Cyril who is about 26 years older, has married, has four children, a struggling architectural career and has published a book on medieval architecture. Uglow manages this initial chronological unevenness by expanding upon Sybil’s ancestors in and around Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
Having worked as a teacher and learned about art as an amateur for about three years (conventional drawings and watercolours), being befriended by Cyril who informally taught her (and probably became her lover), Sybil moved to London in autumn 1922 to attend an Art School. Cyril follows in 1923, deserting his family (but not divorcing, as a Catholic), although he continued to provide some financial support.

Uglow describes London in 1923, the culture and the coming of modernity, the “Jazz Age”, after the austerity of the Great War and the immediate post-war period. This allows the book to also provide a social history of London, as Andrews and Power were interested in depicting modern social and sporting activities such as ice skating, motor racing and funfairs, as well as modern life in the form of mechanised workers and the London Underground (the “tube”), as shown in prints of the station platforms, escalators and trains.
However Andrews and Power must make a living, as well as create art, and so from 1925 with the encouragement of Claude Flight both teach art at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, and sell linocut prints, to which they had been introduced by Flight. The description of the technical and artistic development of their linocut style, which they seem to have developed jointly, together with the subject matter and approach to sales is explored whilst interweaving their biographical stories and asides about their milieu.
In 1933 they held their first joint exhibition, displaying monotype prints, as well as their now well known linocuts. Monotypes seem a move back from the modernity of linocuts, and all Andrews’ monotype pictures were lost in a gallery warehouse fire, but Cattawade Bridge by Power looks more realistic, although the colouring is post-modern. (Uglow describes a monotype as “a curious creature – not a print, as it can’t be produced in multiples, and not a painting, as it is ‘printed’. In a way it is a reverse painting. Using printer’s ink or oils straight from the tube, ... painted directly onto a metal plate to get the tones and lights ... wanted.”)
Life is lived fully, and Uglow describes concert going, holidays, music making, which provide the inspiration for their art, as well as the work involved in printing and selling their art. An intense period of work and living to 1938, changes by fear of war and Andrews deciding that she no longer wants to live in London. A move to the New Forest by Andrews, with Power only visiting at weekends gradually changes their relationship, and war comes with Andrews working in a military boat building team, where she meets her future husband, and so Power leaves (returning to his wife after more than twenty years apart). This is dynamically and impressionistically described, with plenty of illustrations of the art described (black and white) and some photos.
There follows a brief description of Andrews and Power’s subsequent lives, with Power dying in 1951 and Power moving to the west coast of Canada with her husband, where making a living was hard until interest in the Grosvenor School arose in the 1970’s, and where she died in 1992.

The cover of my Faber edition is a mashup of Andrews’ Racers and Power’s The Escalator.

I received a Netgalley copy of this book, but this review is my honest opinion.
Postscript February 2022, I have bought the beautifully produced Faber hardback edition, which benefits from plenty of colour reproductions of the prints. Upon reflecting on how much I have thought back to this book in the intervening months, I have upped my rating to four and a half stars. ( )