Bright, beautiful and deceptively simple: the art of the linocut

In the 1920s the linocut broke out of the schoolroom and on to gallery walls. Here was a democratic new art form, perfect for the times with its lowly materials — a piece of old linoleum flooring for the block, while the best tools, according to the artist Claude Flight, were an old umbrella spoke for cutting and a toothbrush to rub the back of the paper. The finished prints, Flight hoped, would be cheap enough for working-class pockets.

Above all, the bright, dynamic images themselves, often depicting scenes of contemporary life — busy streets, the London Underground, skating, the first motor races — captured the mood of the age. Influenced by the Futurists, the style was thrillingly modern, with its subjects simplified to near abstraction and its focus on speed, rhythm and pattern. Jenny Uglow’s excellent, vividly illustrated new book tells the story of two of the most talented practitioners of the art, Cyril Power and Sybil Andrews.