Refugee Family c. 1939

Samuel Greenburg made this stark woodcut print, probably sometime in the mid-20th century. The black ink is laid down in these forceful, slashing gestures, cutting away at the white of the paper. I imagine Greenburg wrestling with the woodblock, the image emerging through the sheer labor of carving. The faces of the figures have a haunted, anxious quality, punctuated by the hard, graphic lines. What does it feel like to be in that position, holding someone you love in a moment of crisis? It’s like he's transmitting the fear and exhaustion of displacement directly to us. The brutal simplicity of the medium reminds me of German Expressionist artists like Kathe Kollwitz, who also used woodcuts to depict the suffering of war and poverty. Artists are always building on each other's work. It’s like Greenburg is asking us to not look away, to bear witness to the human cost of conflict. Even though it's made with simple materials, the emotional impact is intense. What does it mean to you?