Untitled (Abstraction) 1939

Charles William Smith made this untitled abstraction as a print. Look closely and you can see the texture of the paper that Smith imprinted his design onto. The graininess of the image reveals the work's process. Smith likely used a woodblock to create it, carving away areas and leaving others raised to receive ink. This contrasts with the design itself, a composition of geometric shapes in shades of red and gray, which seems almost industrial. The artist draws on a lineage that includes the German Expressionists, known for their angular, bold woodcuts, and the Russian Constructivists, who combined art and industrial design after the 1917 revolution. You can imagine Smith carefully cutting the block, in order to create a bold image that embraces both handcraft and machine production. Ultimately, it is the fusion of material and design that gives this print its power. It invites us to consider the many ways in which the handmade and the machine-made can inform one another.