Old Street in Cannes 1929

Percy Albee made this etching called ‘Old Street in Cannes’ using closely hatched lines to create a captivating old-world street scene. I can really imagine Albee making this, how the needle dug into the plate, a dance of tiny marks accumulating into buildings, people, and shadows. It’s a whole world built from careful scraping. It reminds me of the prints of Whistler, or maybe even some of Piranesi’s architectural fantasies – that same love for the grit and grandeur of the city. Look how he uses the density of the lines to suggest depth. The way the light seems to flicker on the walls. There's a little theatre going on, the figures frozen in place. Was he capturing a fleeting moment, or inventing a scene from memory? Maybe that's why the lines feel so alive, so full of energy. Artists keep each other alive, right? We all borrow, steal, and riff off each other across time, and it’s like Albee is speaking to us now through his work and through our own ways of seeing.