Gadearbejdere 1920 - 1924

Gudrun Traustedt made this drawing with brown ink on paper. I can almost see her, perched somewhere, watching workers laying stones. She's observing them carefully, trying to capture the scene in front of her. I imagine her making quick, light marks, trying to record the details of the scene before her. I see a few straight lines creating the horizon line and a series of small rectangles representing the stones, and then the bodies of the workers bent over their labor. What I find so compelling about the work is her intuitive use of line to convey form and space. It’s so spare and delicate, really. The strokes are so light, you almost don’t notice them. She reminds me of other painters who used drawing to capture fleeting moments. But her voice is all her own: a little bit poetic, a little bit melancholic, and very very human. It just goes to show, right? How artists see each other across time, inspiring each other.