View near Dudley

In January 1920 Wadsworth held a highly acclaimed one-man show at the Leicester Galleries entitled, The Black Country. He had first recognised the artistic potential of the bleak but powerful industrial landscape between Birmingham and Wolverhampton on train journeys during his wartime naval service. When demobilisation came in 1919 he returned to sketch the smoking steel furnaces, factories and slag heaps. A similar pen and ink drawing, View near Bilston (1919) is in the collection of Manchester City Art Galleries (see J. Lewison (ed.), A Genius of Industrial England Edward Wadsworth 1889-1949, Bradford Art Galleries and Museums exhibition catalogue, 1990, no. 64, p. 35, illustrated).