Tower Bridge, London

Agnes Reeve

Agnes Reeve studied at the Slade School and the Byam Shaw School of Art. After WWII she joined the Chelsea Art Society where she began to create color relief prints of London and Suffolk.

Reeve depicts the bridge from a distance, adding a pier and colorful cranes. The cargo boats in the foreground are printed with dark, crisp colors. As the image recedes she uses chiaroscuro by lightening the pressure of the printing, creating the illusion of fog over the river and the city in the background.

This color woodcut is of the Tower Bridge, a suspension bridge which spans the Thames River in London and is a national landmark. It was built between 1886 and 1894. The bridge consists of two bridge towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, designed to withstand the horizontal tension forces exerted by the suspended sections of the bridge on the landward sides of the towers. The vertical components of the forces in the suspended sections and the vertical reactions of the two walkways are carried by the two robust towers.