Untitled (Abstraction: Woman With Lyre) 1937

Carl Robert Holty made this woodcut, an Untitled Abstraction: Woman With Lyre, using black ink. It's a cool image; it makes me wonder what it was like to carve away at that block of wood, each line a deliberate cut, peeling back the surface to reveal this elegant, musical figure. I can imagine Holty thinking about Picasso and Braque, simplifying forms, looking for the essence of things. What does it mean to abstract a woman with a lyre anyway? Is it about capturing the sound, the feeling, or just the idea of music and femininity? The white lines sing against the solid black, creating a rhythm of their own. The woman's body is there, but barely; it is more like a suggestion, an echo, a ghostly impression of a body. The conversation between artists is never-ending: Holty’s work connects back to earlier modernists and resonates with contemporary artists. Painting is an invitation into a world of ongoing dialogue and exchange, a place for ambiguity and multiple readings.