Boats Docked at Harbor c. 1920s

Percy F. Albee made this print of boats docked at the harbor using a drypoint technique. The world emerges from a tangle of marks, and the image feels provisional, like it’s still being discovered. I can imagine Albee standing on the shore, squinting, trying to capture the scene before him. It's a dance between observation and invention. He scratches into the plate with a drypoint needle, dragging the metal to create a burr that holds the ink. It’s a physical process, and you can feel the artist's hand in every line. Look closely and you can see the velvety blacks, the subtle grays, the way the light catches on the water. The scene almost dissolves into abstraction, a reminder that representation is always a construction, an interpretation. The birds sitting on the roof become a graphic device. The tangled marks in the foreground become a sculptural mass. It’s all surface, all texture, a testament to the power of the medium itself.