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Further to my post on Edward Bawden, here are some more thoughts about why British art took the direction it did in the mid-twentieth century. Bawden�s untitled abstract copper engraving, featured in the last two posts, was published in issue six of the Curwen Press �quadrimestrial of typography and graphic arts�, Signature, in July 1937. The same issue also had a highly-experimental abstract colour lithograph by John Piper, and an almost surreal colour lithograph of fish underwater by Graham Sutherland. The Piper and Sutherland works were used for the front and back covers of Stephen Laird�s catalogue for the exhibition Twentieth Century British Lithographs: From Pastoral to Pop Art at Keynes College, University of Kent in 2009. John Piper, Invention in Colour Lithograph, 1937 This lithograph by Piper (described as a �drawing� in Signature) is a very complex print. Stephen Laird says it �was printed from a �mosaic� of plates made from different materials, including line, paramat (a ru