Like any modernist worth his salt, William McCance sought to document twentieth century industrial life.
His subject is often domestic, but is realised using a vorticist-style schematisation which promotes underlying geometric volumes. Thus, organic forms assume an almost mechanised quality: a human figure is transformed into a strange automaton; a grove of trees is delineated as if it were a cluster of factory pipes.
McCance and Agnes Miller Parker moved to London in 1920 and were amongst the earliest Scots to adopt a Wyndham Lewis-inspired vorticism. Their mutual inclination towards line and pattern lent itself well to the graphic arts. Miller Parker was a talented wood engraver and illustrator, while McCance worked across painting, printmaking, design, sculpture, writing and typography.
