Untitled (Deer Dance) 1949

This compelling print of a Deer Dance was made by William Howard Shuster. Looking at those scratchy marks, I’m thinking about how prints have this special way of making an image emerge, bit by bit. You can almost feel Shuster coaxing the scene out of the plate. I can imagine him, bent over the metal, etching those fine lines, thinking about ritual and community and the dance itself. There’s a real sense of movement, of bodies in motion. It's a scene filled with shadowy figures and the smokey haze that fills the scene. The way he captures light and shadow, it reminds me a little of Kathe Kollwitz, you know? That same intensity, a similar commitment to portraying humanity. Shuster, like many artists, shows us how to look, how to pay attention, and how to see the world anew.