Gumbo Lane 1927

Curator: Standing here, you're looking at Wanda Gág's 1927 woodcut, "Gumbo Lane," now a treasure in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The scene hums with curious details; a landscape pulling you in with its graphic intensity. What jumps out at you initially? Editor: The stark contrast! It feels like a memory flickering back, or a shadowy corner in a fairy tale—the high contrast and swirling forms makes it almost claustrophobic despite being a landscape. There’s a dense, almost gothic, atmosphere here. Curator: Absolutely. Gág was a master of woodcut. Notice how she uses the medium’s inherent darkness and light to sculpt a landscape that feels both inviting and slightly unsettling. She plays with archetypal imagery—paths, doorways in foliage. Editor: And those textures! Those shrubs almost look like bursting seed pods. Paths, gates and passages… very potent symbols of transformation and transition, wouldn't you say? One wonders, is it inviting or foreboding— or both? Curator: Precisely. Gág often blended the personal with the universally symbolic. “Gumbo Lane” reflects not just an observed landscape, but likely her own internal one, a dreamscape perhaps. This was created during a difficult period of great creativity—a way to express the internal by going outward. The lanes almost feel as though one is lost. Editor: You are right—this makes sense to me, knowing about this period in the artist's life. But those recurring orb-like bushes have some psychological charge. Eyes, or fruit…knowledge? There is something uncanny here. Curator: Gág often included natural symbols drawn from the German Romantic tradition. Perhaps a sense of unease and the beauty coexisting. A powerful commentary for sure. Editor: Yes, thank you. It is almost as though the darkness helps you find what light there is here. It helps one truly connect.