Untitled 1946

Elmer Bischoff made this ‘Untitled’ watercolour, and it looks like he was working through something, searching. The ochre and browns give a hazy warmth, but the lines shooting across, they kind of stir things up, don’t they? It's like a landscape, but one that's still in the making, a bit dreamy. The brushstrokes feel loose, like Bischoff's letting the paint do its thing, but then you notice these sharp lines cutting through, anchoring the whole image. It’s a process, a back and forth. Look at the shapes at the bottom, like husks or boats, full of earthy browns. They feel heavy, weighted, and it makes me think about how even in abstract art, there’s always this pull toward the real, the grounded. Bischoff was part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, and you can feel that push and pull here. You might also think of someone like Dove, another artist thinking through landscape, abstraction and feeling. It’s a conversation. There’s no right answer here, just looking and thinking.