Assepoester 1929

Fré Cohen made this print, Assepoester, with ink on paper. It’s a scene rendered in the starkest of contrasts: solid black shapes carved out of the white of the paper. I love how the scene is constructed through careful and deliberate cuts. See the way the fire is made of bold, vertical strokes, almost like thick, unruly hairs? The witch in her cloak, patterned with stars and moons, is all sharp angles and pointed features. She feels menacing. These stark blacks and whites remind me of Käthe Kollwitz, another artist who used printmaking to tell stories full of emotion. There’s a real beauty in the simplicity here, isn’t there? The way Cohen reduces the fairy tale to its most essential elements, leaving us to fill in the blanks. Art isn’t about perfect answers; it’s about the questions it provokes, the stories it invites us to tell ourselves.