Happy Holiday 1930

Peggy Bacon made this etching, called *Happy Holiday*, with ink on a plate and paper. What a great title, right? But then you look, and all these figures are packed in so tight, you wonder if they’re having a happy holiday at all. The lines are all scratchy, like she’s digging into the metal, cross-hatching it here and there to build up areas of darker tone. Everything's made of line. The feeling I get is one of nervous energy, like those old Warner Brothers cartoons. Look at the faces in the bottom right, peering over the railing into the crowd. They’re all slightly caricatured, with big noses and bulging eyes. They look a bit like the artist herself, who was known for her satirical portraits. There's something of Otto Dix in her work and I love that she embraces the humour and irony of life.