Death Can Be Fat 1964

Sid Hammer made this print, "Death Can Be Fat", sometime before 1969. It's all done in black and white, with lines that seem to scratch and wiggle across the page, building up to a skeletal, corpulent form. Looking at this print, I’m struck by how Hammer uses the texture and physicality of the medium to convey a sense of decay. The lines aren’t clean or precise; they’re messy, almost frantic, like he’s trying to capture something that’s slipping away. The title itself is intriguing. There's this dark humor, a kind of gallows wit. Take the area around the head: you see these dense, dark masses offset by the fragile lines, a contrast that amplifies the sense of both weight and disintegration. This reminds me of other artists like Philip Guston, who also weren't afraid to mix the grotesque with the humorous, and the deeply personal with the universal. Ultimately, it's a reminder that art is not about answers, but about asking questions, embracing uncertainty, and finding beauty in the unexpected.