An exciting free exhibition has opened at the Cooper Gallery exploring artist Edward Wadsworth's life and work.
It runs until Christmas Eve and takes visitors through the dynamic period of artistic change and social upheaval in the early 20th century.
Wadsworth was part of the generation of young men affected profoundly by war.
Born in Cleckheaton in 1889, he went to Bradford School of Art and studied at the Slade in London, along with other artists like Henry Moore and war artist Paul Nash.
During the First World War Wadsworth served with the Royal Navy in Greece and then returned home to manage a programme to camouflage war ships known as 'Dazzle' painting.
He spent the Second World War in Derbyshire where he was trained to interrogate prisoners of war. Throughout his career he continued to experiment with new artistic styles such as abstraction, surrealism and cubism.
Author Jonathan Black believes he made 'one of the most important contributions to twentieth-century avant-garde art by a British artist'.
The exhibition is the culmination of recent research and displays works from the Cooper Gallery's own collection alongside regional and national loans from Tate and the Imperial War Museum.
The Cooper Gallery is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm and Saturday, 10am to 3pm.
