Untitled (Abstraction) 1948

This untitled abstraction was made by Walt Kuhlman, but when, we don’t know. It’s got this really interesting mark-making thing going on, where everything feels both precise and kind of accidental, you know? Like he’s letting the tool do some of the talking. I’m really drawn to the physicality of it. It looks like a print, and you can see the texture of the paper coming through, especially in the lighter areas. Then there’s the darks, these really dense, almost velvety blacks, like in the top left corner. I love how the lines aren't always clean or defined. There's a smudge here, a scratch there. It's like Kuhlman is showing us the evidence of his process, the push and pull of making. The whole thing reminds me a bit of some of the early Abstract Expressionists, like maybe a de Kooning drawing. But Kuhlman's got his own thing going on, a kind of raw, unpretentious energy. It feels like a conversation, a dialogue between the artist, the material, and us, the viewers.