Sunday Fishermen c. 1935 - 1939

Elizabeth Olds made this lithograph, Sunday Fishermen, employing a monochromatic palette to create a snapshot of leisure. I love the directness of the marks. You can really feel the artist working through the image; there's no attempt to disguise the process. The textures achieved with lithography here are incredible, there's a real sense of the surface, as if you could reach out and feel the subtle grain of the stone. Look at the reflections in the water – short, squiggly lines that capture the rippling surface. It’s a detail that really brings the whole scene to life. It's these sort of marks that invite us to see the scene as a memory or a dream. Olds’s commitment to social themes and accessible art reminds me of the work of other politically engaged artists like Kathe Kollwitz. These artists use their work to make a statement about the world around them.