East River 1951

Hugh Mesibov made this black and white woodcut print, called 'East River'. I like to think about all the moves the artist makes when creating a print like this. It's really a dance, where they’re carving away at the woodblock, making decisive cuts and lines, and then inking the surface. The composition is a flurry of straight lines that create tension, a kind of organized chaos, where geometric forms meet architectural elements. It kind of reminds me of the precision of early modernist abstraction, like Mondrian. I wonder if Mesibov was thinking about the urban landscape, the energy of the city, and how that translates into the language of abstraction. I love how artists can be in conversation with each other across time and space, building on ideas and pushing the boundaries of what painting can be.