Claude Flight Biography

Walter Claude Flight (1881-1955) also known as Claude Flight or W. Claude Flight was a British artist who pioneered and popularised the linocut technique in printmaking. He also painted, illustrated and made woodcuts. He was the son of the British Museum mineralogist, Walter Flight FRS (1841-1885).

Flight had tried a number of different careers before settling on art. He had kept bees, farmed and also had tried engineering before studying art at Heatherley School of Fine Art from 1913-1914 and from 1918.

Flight was a fervent promoter of the linoleum cut technique from the time he first used it in 1919. He felt that by promoting the use of the cheap and easily obtained new material, he was making it possible for the masses to be exposed to art. He saw in it the potentiality of a truly democratic art form.

Flight exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1921, in Paris in 1922 and in London at the R.B.A. from 1923. He also exhibited regularly at the Redfern Gallery and abroad.

Flight was a member of the Seven and Five Society in 1923 whose members included Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. He was a member of the Grubb Group in 1928.

He collaborated with the artist and textile designer Edith Lawrence, with whom he had an interior design business.

He taught at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art from 1926 and wrote and organised exhibitions on linocuts. His pupils included various now-famous print artists such as Lill Tschudi, Cyril Power, Eileen Mayo, Dorrit Black and Sybil Andrews.

Influenced by Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism, his work expressed dynamic rhythm through bold, simple forms. His linocut prints show his interest in depicting speed and movement.

He produced over 64 different prints and published 9 books on the linocut technique.

Edith Lawrence and Claude Flight were lifelong companions. Lawrence nursed Flight from 1947, when he suffered a stroke, until he died in 1955.