Hüttledorf Brewery, A. Brusatti 1912

Gustav Kalhammer made this small print of the Hüttledorf Brewery, probably as a postcard, sometime in the early 20th century. Look at the way he's used these scratchy, confident lines to build up the scene. There's a real pleasure in the process. I love how the whole image feels like a quick sketch, a moment captured on the go. The texture is so immediate; you can almost feel the grain of the paper, the bite of the ink. It's amazing how much information he gets across with so few marks. The foreground, with its tables and chairs, is rendered with a kind of shorthand, but it totally works. I think that mark that makes up the eye and eyebrow of the man on the bottom right is my favourite part. It has a kind of graphic punch, like you see in the work of someone like Martin Ramirez. Kalhammer wasn't as 'out there' as Ramirez, but there is something special in this image. Art isn't about answering questions, it's about keeping the conversation alive.