Three Friends of Winter 1913

Helen Hyde made this beautiful print around 1913. I’m immediately drawn to the texture. You know, how a printmaker coaxes form out of a block of wood? It’s so different from painting, but the idea of carving away at a surface to reveal something hidden really resonates with me. I imagine Helen Hyde carefully choosing each color, each line, thinking about how they’d all come together. Did she labor over it, or did it flow out of her effortlessly? I wonder what it was like for her, living and working in Japan. There’s such a sense of grace and quietude in this image, of a small girl carefully carrying a potted plant through a serene interior. You can almost feel the stillness of the room and the gentle weight of the plant in her hands. I think she was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, but she put her own spin on it. It’s a reminder that artists are always in conversation with one another, borrowing, riffing, and pushing each other forward.