Composition X 1957

Martin Russell Hurtig made this print, Composition X, in 1957. It's an etching, which means he used acid to bite into a metal plate, then inked it up and pressed it onto paper. The marks are so varied, some are delicate and precise, others are rough and ragged, almost as if he attacked the plate! Look at the way the shapes hover between abstraction and representation, like vessels, or maybe even machine parts. There’s a real tension here, a sense of forms emerging and dissolving simultaneously. I keep coming back to the contrast between the dark, velvety background and the crisp, white lines. It’s like a dance of opposites, pushing and pulling your eye across the surface. It reminds me a little of some of the early abstract expressionist prints, like those by Robert Motherwell, where the process itself becomes the subject. Ultimately, it's a reminder that art is a conversation, a constant exploration of form and meaning, without any easy answers.