Untitled 1944

This drawing by Kukryniksy uses ink and watercolour in broad strokes, the kind that can shift and change as the artist feels their way forward. You can tell the artist is having fun with the depiction of these figures. The off-kilter angles and awkward poses, the sense of things falling apart. The guy with the gun. I imagine them watching, maybe even playing cards like these characters, and then rushing to the paper to capture the scene. The blue table and the muted tones throughout the image feel appropriate for a serious subject. The black ink that defines the image, which is also a serious colour, provides a narrative framework, but the looser watercolour application adds dynamism and movement, as though the characters could leap off the page at any moment. It's like Picasso meets George Grosz. And it reminds us that artists are constantly building on the work of those who came before.