Untitled (Seated Woman) 1938

Eleanor Coen made this lithograph of a seated woman on a stone, and it's just so full of atmosphere. The restricted palette makes it feel like a quiet moment captured in shades of gray. The texture is key here; you can almost feel the roughness of the stone. Coen hasn't tried to hide the process at all. The lines are soft and blurred in some places, sharper in others, giving real weight to the figure and a sense of light filtering across the scene. Look at the way she's rendered the fabric of the woman's shirt, with those simple stripes that somehow convey volume and form. There's a real intimacy to this piece. It reminds me a bit of Käthe Kollwitz, in the way that it balances a keen observation of the world with a deep empathy for the subject. Ultimately, it’s not about a perfect likeness but more about capturing a feeling, an essence.