Lithograph on paper
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/james-boswell-787" aria-label="More by James Boswell" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">James Boswell</a>
Gosfield Street Murder
Presented by Ruth Boswell, the artist's widow 2000
actions: postures and motions
adults
bed
bedroom
birth to death
body
chair
clothing and personal items
corpse
crime and punishment
death
domestic
England
furnishings
Gosfield Street
interiors
man
mirror
murder
objects
people
places
sitting
society
spread-eagled
stocking
UK countries and regions
UK London
woman
<p>This horrific, if conventional, image portrays a murder in a bedroom in Gosfield Street, a road near Oxford Street in the centre of London. The victim is dramatically splayed out in the foreground, her legs apart and her dress above her knees to reveal her stockings and suspenders. Blood spills out from her cut throat on to the floor, while a mans sits on a chair beside the dead body, his eyes wide open and his hands and clothes bloodied from the attack. The upturned chair perhaps suggests a struggle between the couple before the event took place. Boswell heightens the tension of the scene by presenting only the stark details of the crime, the rest of the narrative being left to the viewer’s imagination. The combination of sexuality and violence, executed in a brutally realistic style, recalls the work of the German illustrator, George Grosz (1893-1959), who produced illustrations of modern assassinations, executions and murders to reveal his contempt for German society during the reign of William II, who was Emperor between 1888 and 1918.</p>
paper print lithograph
Gosfield Street Murder
image: 220 × 162 mm
Presented by Ruth Boswell, the artist's widow 2000
<div class="text">
<p>This horrific, if conventional, image portrays a murder in a bedroom in Gosfield Street, a road near Oxford Street in the centre of London. The victim is dramatically splayed out in the foreground, her legs apart and her dress above her knees to reveal her stockings and suspenders. Blood spills out from her cut throat on to the floor, while a mans sits on a chair beside the dead body, his eyes wide open and his hands and clothes bloodied from the attack. The upturned chair perhaps suggests a struggle between the couple before the event took place. Boswell heightens the tension of the scene by presenting only the stark details of the crime, the rest of the narrative being left to the viewer’s imagination. The combination of sexuality and violence, executed in a brutally realistic style, recalls the work of the German illustrator, George Grosz (1893-1959), who produced illustrations of modern assassinations, executions and murders to reveal his contempt for German society during the reign of William II, who was Emperor between 1888 and 1918. </p>
<p>Boswell was illustrating the murder on 11 February 1942 of a sex worker called Mrs Margaret Florence Lowe, who was killed in her flat on Gosfield Street (information supplied by Ruth Boswell, the artist’s widow, August 2003). She had apparently been strangled with a silk stocking and her body then mutilated with a razor-blade and knife. The murderer, George Frederick Cummins, was responsible for a spate of murders at this time, all of which occurred over six days in February 1942. <i>Gosfield Street Murder </i>relates to two other prints Boswell made a few years before titled <i>The Means Test </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/boswell-the-means-test-p01820" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P01820</span></a>-1). These equally shocking images portray a suicide which, as the title implies, was caused by the introduction of the Means Test in 1931. The Means Test affected thousands of people who were out of work by taking away their unemployment benefit. </p>
<p>Boswell’s political affiliations are reflected in his numerous illustrations of a mendacious society. In 1933 he co-founded the Artists International Association. Composed of politically engaged artists and designers, including James Fitton and Clifford Rowe (1904-89), the movement was founded as a reaction to the Great Depression of 1929 to 1936 which led to mass unemployment amongst the working classes. The objective of the group was to use art as a ‘weapon of the proletariat in the economic and political struggle against the bourgeoisie’ (Donald Drew Egbert, <i>Social Radicalism and the Arts, </i>London 1970, p.497). Boswell’s preference for the mass production of print media allowed his work to reach a wide audience, and this print may have been reproduced in the left-wing periodical <i>Left Review, </i>of which Boswell was art editor between 1934 and 1938. <i> </i>
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<b>Further reading:</b>
<br/>
<i>James Boswell: Extracting the Dream Reality, </i>exhibition catalogue, Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London 1999, reproduced</p>
<p>Heather Birchall <br/>March 2005</p>
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Summary
2021-08-25T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
actions: postures and motions adults bed bedroom birth to death body chair clothing and personal items corpse crime and punishment death domestic England furnishings Gosfield Street interiors man mirror murder objects people places sitting society spread-eagled stocking UK countries and regions UK London woman