The Old Pier 1931

Adolph J. Kopcak made this print, ‘The Old Pier’, and I'm thinking about all those lines, the cross-hatching that builds up the pier’s dark shadows. You can almost feel the grit and the gloom. The artist is right in there, close to the pier, looking out onto the water. I’m picturing him carefully layering the marks, trying to capture the mood of the scene: the bridge in the distance, the boats moving along the river, the sky. It’s like he's trying to get the whole world into this one image, the sharp architectural lines contrasting with the fluid movement of the water and the distant skyline fading into the mist. He must have been thinking about Joseph Pennell. These artists are all in conversation, sharing ideas across time. And here we are, looking at this print, adding our own thoughts to the mix. That’s the great thing about art, right? It keeps going, keeps changing, as long as we keep looking.