The Couple, Self-Portrait with Wife (Das Paar, Selbstporträt mit Frau) 1922

This is Walter Gramatté's self-portrait with his wife, made with etching, sometime between the wars, I’d guess. You can see the cross hatching, the tonal variations, the way the lines describe form and shadow. I’m thinking about Gramatté, pulling the needle across the plate, figuring out how much pressure to apply to get the depth of line he wants. The composition is odd, isn’t it? The way the man’s face is bisected by the horizon line. The wife is almost ghostlike, a spectral presence hovering behind him. Is she holding flowers? Or are they feathers? It’s like he’s trying to capture something elusive about their relationship, how they see each other, how they present themselves to the world. It reminds me a little bit of Kirchner, that same raw intensity, the desire to get at something true, something felt. It’s a conversation happening across time, between artists, about what it means to be human, to be seen, to be loved.