Concrete Foundations - 6th Avenue Subway 1938

Charles Keller's print, Concrete Foundations - 6th Avenue Subway, captures a moment in the city’s ever-evolving story, probably from the 1930's. The gray monochrome lends itself to the gritty realism of construction, all about process. Look at the way Keller uses hatching and cross-hatching to build up tone, the way the light catches the workers’ backs and the curves of the cement mixer. You can almost feel the weight of the materials, the dust in the air, the sheer labor involved in building something so massive beneath the city. The composition is all about angles and lines, mimicking the scaffolding and the sharp edges of the concrete forms. It reminds me a bit of the Ashcan School painters, those artists who weren't afraid to get down and dirty with the real stuff of urban life. It's not pretty, but it's honest and full of energy. Art doesn't always have to be about beauty; sometimes, it’s about bearing witness to the world around us.