#1 Blake Series 1935

Winifred Milius Lubell made this print, titled '#1 Blake Series' in 1935. The black and white is so stark, but the way Lubell uses this intense contrast to create form is really beautiful. It's a process of reduction, of carving away at the surface, to reveal an image. The details, especially in the boy's hair, are fascinating. I keep wondering, what kind of tool made that mark? Did she use a knife, or maybe a gouge? It must have taken real control to get such variation in line and texture. The overall effect is this strange combination of precision and wildness. Then there's the background, a tangle of shapes, which could be anything, or nothing, really. I love that it’s so ambiguous, suggesting some kind of psychological space. The simplified forms and directness remind me a bit of the German Expressionist woodcut artists like Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff. The way Lubell has embraced this rather graphic, stripped-down language feels totally contemporary, even though it was made almost a century ago.