Cyril Edward Power | Biography | | 1872 | Born 17th December at 14 Redcliffe Street, Chelsea London. Eldest child of Edward William Power. Educated in London. Encouraged to draw by his father (There are sketchbooks in existence dating back to 1886). Also studied music and became a proficient pianist and violinist. | | 1890 | Followed the family tradition and became articled as an architect, working for some time in his father's office. | | 1900 | Awarded the Sloane Medallion by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for a design for an art school. | | 1902 | Elected an Associate Member of RIBA | | 1904 | Married Dorothy Mary Nunn on 27th August at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. They set up home in Kenilworth Court, Putney, London. | | 1905 | Birth of their first child, Edward Roper Power on 22nd November. Worked as an architect at the Ministry of Works under Sir Richard Allington and was involved with the design and construction of the General Post Office, King Edward VII Building and also the Post Office at the corner of Exhibition Road and Imperial College, Kensington, London. | | 1908 | The family moved to Broadfield Road, Catford, London where their second son Cyril Arthur Power was born on 11th July.
Was lecturer of Architectural Design and History at the School of Architecture, University College London (now called the Bartlett School of Architecture) under Professor Simpson and also at Goldsmith's College, Newcross, London. | | 1912 | Publication of his three-volume work: History of English Medieval Architecture by the Talbot Press mainly illustrated with his own pen and ink drawings. | | 1914 | Birth of his daughter, Joan Margaret Roper Power | | 1916 | Commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps and was in charge of the repair workshops at Lympe Aerodrome on the Kent coast. | | Designed and executed a War Memorial for the Great Western Railway at Paddington, London. | | 1918 | After demobilisation the family moved to 4 Crown Street, Chequer Square in Bury St Edmunds where Power recommenced his architectural practice. | | 1920 | Designed alterations and additions to Chadacre Hall Agricultural College for Lord Iveagh. During this period he was producing watercolour landscapes and townscapes as well as the first of some 40 drypoints. | | 1921 | Birth of his youngest son Edmund Berry Power on 11th December. It was during 1921 that he met Sybil Andrews, with whom he maintained a close and informal working relationship which lasted some 20 years beginning with a joint exhibition of pastels and watercolours at Crescent House, Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds. | | 1923 | The family moved to George Street, St Albans Hertfordshire.
Power and Andrews enrolled at Heatherley's School of Fine Art, London. | | 1925 | Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Helped Iain MacNab and Claude Flight set up the Grosvenor School of Modern Art at 33 Warwick Square, London. Andrews became the School Secretary. The principal lecturers were Power on the subject of: The Form and Structure of Buildings, Historical Ornament and Symbolism and Outline of Architectural Styles and Frank Rutter, the art critic, on Modern Painters from Cézanne to Picasso. It was here at the Grosvenor School that Claude Flight taught the art of linocutting. His classes were attended by his colleagues Power and Andrews and students that came from as far afield as Australia and New Zealand, attracted by the advertisements in The Studio | | 1929 | Claude Flight and his circle mounted The First Exhibition of British Lino-Cuts in June at the Redfern Gallery (then at 27 Old Bond Street). A series of exhibitions was held annually at the Redfern Gallery and the Ward Gallery. Further exhibitions were arranged by Flight and travelled to the USA, Australia and even to China (The Shanghai Arts Club).
The success of the exhibition led to a commission by Frank Pick, the Deputy Chairman of the Underground Electric Railways of London (later to become the London Passenger Transport Board) to design a series of posters. These were produced as chromolithographs and were based on the theme of sporting venues reached via the London Underground system and later by bus or private coach hire. The first of these appeared at Southfield tube station, the alighting point for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.
Others were for cricket at Lords, St John's Wood and The Oval, Kennington. They also designed posters for ice hockey and skating at the Empire Sports Arena, Wembley racing at Epsom and an invitation to Hire a coach and go to....The Aldershot Tattoo | | 1930 | Elected member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Set up a studio with Sybil Andrews at 2 Brook Green Studios in Hammersmith, London close to the River Thames which inspired a number of prints by both artists, most notably The Eight by Power and Bringing in the Boat by Andrews. Stemming from his interest in music, the studio at Brook Green also musicians | | 1933 | First major joint exhibition of the work of Cyril Power and Sybil Andrews at the Redfern Gallery which consisted of linocuts and monotypes. | | 1938 | The informal partnership with Sybil Andrews came to an end in July when they gave up the studio at Brook Green and Sybil moved to 'Pipers', a thatched cottage at Norley Wood near Lymington on the Hampshire coast which Power had modernised and enlarged the previous year. Power rejoined the family who had just moved from Hertfordshire to New Malden in Surrey. | | 1939 | At the outbreak of war in September, Power was attached to a Heavy Rescue Squad as a surveyor, based at Wandsworth Town Hall. He continued drawing and painting, tending to work principally in oils using a palette knife technique. He also spent time lecturing on painting and linocutting to the local art society at New Malden and at Kingston. | | 1951 | During the last year of his life Power completed some eighty-nine oil paintings, mainly landscapes of the Helford River and the Falmouth area of Cornwall as well as some floral studies. He died in London in May 1951, aged seventy-nine |
| Collections | | British Museum, London | | Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand | | Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, San Francisco | | Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, University of California, Los Angeles | | Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami Beach | | National Gallery of Australia, Canberra | | New York Public Library, New York | | National Gallery of Australia, Canberra | | Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto | | Museum of Modern Art, New York | | Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | | National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne | | National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand | | London Transport Museum, London |
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