In 1917, as a naval intelligence officer, Edward Wadsworth was hired to supervise 'dazzle' camouflage applied to ships in the Liverpool and Bristol dockyards. Such work was the inspiration for some of Wadsworth's most striking and obviously vorticist work.
In 'Turret ship in dry dock', Wadsworth characterises the vorticist aesthetic in its most abstract phase. Strong diagonals, angular motifs and hard-edged lines combine to celebrate and reflect the rigours of the machine and a love of order. Completed in 1918, 'Turret ship in dry dock' precedes Wadsworth's first solo exhibition of drawings and woodcuts in 1919 at the Adelphi Gallery, and is a fine example of a woodcut produced at the peak of his vorticist leanings.