Barcelona Harbor c. 1928

Curator: Take a look at "Barcelona Harbor," a drawing in pen and ink from around 1928 by Muirhead Bone. Editor: My first thought? Fleeting. There’s something beautifully fragile about the linework, like a memory half-recalled. Curator: Indeed. The artist captures the city's vibrant port activity with remarkable economy. You see the textures of the bustling harbor rendered with these delicate strokes—observe how he details those vessels! It begs us to contemplate the materiality of dockyards and shipyards in the roaring '20s and onward, don't you think? Editor: I see that – he's interested in the dock, the machinery, the commerce. But look at the people. Tiny, almost anonymous, just part of the scene. I get the impression that Bone cares about *making* a document more than portraying individuals. The labor behind industry...the materiality that is then used for recreation for those same workers... Curator: A document in ink, laid out as lines making meaning from form and shade and tone! Notice, however, Bone does imbue them with some life. Even their postures convey an energy – an almost anticipatory stance. A contrast to the hard angles and materials on display otherwise, but then I find it soothing... perhaps because of its grounding effects...like an invitation... I feel grounded at the end of a dock. Do you? Editor: Ha! An invitation? To work, perhaps. For the bourgeois taking pleasure cruises, maybe. The labor is always just beneath the surface—materials, access to transport, to relaxation... these weren’t shared equitably then. So to call this work inviting? No, not for me. Curator: Perhaps “evocative,” then. Because the drawing itself, the lines on the page, pull out those meanings, doesn’t it? It’s like Bone wanted to pull from the ink itself not just an image of place, but the undercurrent of that moment in time itself, right to the surface. Editor: Absolutely, the way Bone utilizes simple tools like ink and paper shows what close looking, and laboring over observation, produces. I look at it differently now, after our talk. Curator: As do I, as do I.