McCosh Walk 1942

Charles Wheeler Locke made this print, McCosh Walk, in 1942. It's a black and white image where the marks feel etched, precise, almost scientific, yet there’s also a haunting moodiness about it. The overall effect is achieved through a detailed application of hatching and cross-hatching. Look at the textures: the roughness of the tree bark, the slickness of the path, even the way the light filters through the leaves. It's all built up stroke by stroke. The figures walking along McCosh Walk are rendered so delicately, they almost seem like ghosts, adding to that atmospheric quality. It brings to mind other printmakers like Whistler, who were masters of capturing light and shadow. The precision and technical skill that is obvious in McCosh Walk doesn't take away from its beauty. It embraces the beauty of a moment, a scene, a memory, and transforms it into something timeless.