Top of the World

In opposition to his family who wished him to pursue a career in industry, Wadsworth determined to train as an artist. Before the First World War, he exhibited with the Vorticists in London and was attracted to their interest in the machine age. During the war he was an intelligence officer, and spent some time working on dazzle camouflage for ships in Liverpool and Bristol. In the 1920s he pioneered a revival of tempera painting, as used by the Italians between the 14th-16th centuries. Despite his experience during the First War, Wadsworth did not receive a commission from the War Artists' Advisory Committee during the Second. Furthermore, his son-in-law's German nationality meant that Wadsworth was never granted a sketching permit, thus preventing him from working out-of-doors. This rejection put him under considerable emotional and financial strain and it was not until 1942 that his career was revived by commissions from ICI to produce advertisements for their products. On a similar theme, but not an ICI commission, Top of the World, painted in tempera, is an industrial landscape in which the smoking chimneys and electricity pylons appear harmonious with the undulating hills and limestone cliff face of the surrounding countryside. An actual view, the painting is of Beswick's Lime Works in Buxton, Derbyshire.