La traverse des lignes (Caught in the Crosshairs)

Maurice Busset, artist

1879–1936

La traverse des lignes (Caught in the Crosshairs), 1920

Portfolio/Series title: Nos Escadrilles Pendant La Grande Guerre (Our Squadrons during the Great War)

Where object was made: Europe

Material/technique: color woodcut

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 169 x 246 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 6 5/8 x 9 11/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 325 x 482 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 12 13/16 x 19 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 2009.0124.09

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
“Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts,” Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
Maurice Busset, who studied art in Paris, began military service as an aerial scout in 1914. After the War he produced several portfolios about aerial warfare. His introductory text to this portfolio states:

Between flights, in the cockpit of the twin motor. Under canvas hangars, winter evenings, under the glow of watchman’s lantern-these images were carved during the turbulent period of the Great War.

A block of cherry or beech, a steel knife, were companions who never abandoned the author in those years when the future no longer existed for the soldier. Without any hope of future publication, he had to prove to himself, that despite the leather jacket of the aviator he was still an artist.

As fate would have it, Busset outlived his comrades and published this book of woodcuts-prints that celebrate flying machines as works of art in their own right. See also the portfolio cover in the nearby case.