International Workers Order 1941

Rockwell Kent made this lithograph, International Workers Order, with crayon and ink. I can just imagine him layering those marks, one on top of the other. I wonder what it was like for him to work on this piece? Was he thinking of the individual people, or a broader collective? Did he want to depict suffering, or aspiration? The figures stand together, but also apart. There’s a tension between individual expression and collective action that many artists have explored, like Käthe Kollwitz, for example. We are all indebted to each other and inspire each other. There are so many ways of seeing and being in the world, just like there are so many ways of making a painting. And just like paintings, we're all shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition.