Building Aircraft: Making the Engine (1917): Art, History and Details

Building Aircraft: Making the Engine (1917) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Christopher Nevinson (British, 1889–1946).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The British government commissioned Christopher Nevinson to create this print, part of a series of six, during World War I. By depicting the manufacture and use of airplanes in England, Nevinson represented the motivations and goals of war to a broad public. This image emphasizes the intense focus and strength required to build an engine. Diagonals and geometric shapes throughout suggest the efficiency and velocity of modern manufacturing.

Object facts

• Title: Building Aircraft: Making the Engine
• Date: 1917
• Creator attribution: Christopher Nevinson (British, 1889–1946)
• Culture: England, 20th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph on wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 40 x 30.1 cm (15 3/4 x 11 7/8 in.); Sheet: 50.8 x 38.3 cm (20 x 15 1/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2018.298

A detail from the museum

This print belongs to a series commissioned by England’s Bureau of Information during World War I.

Collection credit

Anne Elizabeth Wilson Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Black, Jonathan. “Beauty, Rhythm, Strength: C.R.W. Nevinson as a Printmaker, ca. 1916-32,” in A Dilemma of English Modernism: Visual and Verbal Politics in the Life and Work of C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946), ed. Michael J.K. Walsh (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007)
• Black, Jonathan, and C. R. W. Nevinson. C.R.W. Nevinson: The Complete Prints. 2014.
• Black, Jonathan. “’The Human Element’: The Contribution of C.R.W. Nevinson and Eric Kennington to the Britain’s Efforts and Ideals Lithographic Project of 1917,” in Burning Bright: Essays in Honor of David Bindman, ed. Diana Dethloff, Tessa Murdoch, Kim Sloan, and Caroline Elam (London: University College London Press, 2015)

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.