Untitled 1944

Kukryniksy made this satirical cartoon, probably with ink and colored pencil, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The tan paper feels thin, and the drawing is economical, but oh-so-loaded. I’m trying to imagine what it must have been like to be this artist, in that moment. In a time of crisis, is it even possible to make art? Or is art *necessary* in times of crisis? Maybe they were thinking about how to distill a complex political reality into one devastating image. You can see the artist’s hand in the quick, sure lines that bring Hitler’s face into being and the contrast with the hanging noose made of swastikas. That noose references back to Goya’s disasters of war, no? What do you think the artist was hoping for? How did they see the future? Artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other’s ideas, responding to the world around them. Painting, drawing – these are ways of thinking, feeling, making sense when the world feels senseless.