Highball 1945

Edwin Fulwider made this print, Highball, and you can almost feel him in the act of making it, carefully layering planes of colour to create a sense of depth and movement. I like the way Fulwider has used bold, flat areas of colour to suggest form, but it's the unexpected hues that really catch my eye - that salmon pink for the train carriage against the mossy green of the distant hills! I imagine Fulwider thinking about Marsden Hartley, or maybe even Stuart Davis when he made this. He creates a dynamic composition, and I wonder if the artist was thinking about speed, power and the changing landscape of America at the time. That lone figure waving by the train, is he saying goodbye or hello? I'm reminded that artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another, and that there are no fixed ways to interpret a painting; meaning shifts and emerges over time.