Justice 1964

Sid Hammer made this etching, Justice, in 1964. It’s all stark blacks and grays, made from many tiny, close hatch marks that create the figures and scene. Imagine him bent over the plate, layering lines to build up the composition, scratching into the metal with his tools. There’s something so raw and exposed about this print. It’s figurative but in a fragmented way, like how Goya showed the horrors of war. You can feel the artist trying to find a way through a feeling, an image, of what he understands to be justice. The scene is ambiguous, but there's a sense of violence. Are the figures in conflict? Are they victims? Look at the way one figure kneels, hands outstretched, either pleading or being restrained. It's all conveyed through a language of marks, a choreography of lines that makes this piece so resonant and emotionally charged. Like Philip Guston, Hammer explores difficult themes through his expressive approach to the medium. He is in conversation with them, and they with him, across time.