Hand of Friendship 1938

David Low’s drawing, Hand of Friendship, made with ink on paper, seems like it was born of quick, decisive, and urgent strokes. I can picture Low hunched over his drawing board, feeling a sense of obligation and dread in equal measure. The artist’s sympathy might have been with those on the right, but he also felt compassion for the figure in the middle, walled off by ‘militant closed economy super nationalism’— the wall seems to be crushing him, both physically and metaphorically. The drawing’s cross-hatching and jagged lines give everything a sense of instability. The tonal shifts in the ink create a real drama, a stark contrast between light and dark. Look at the way he renders the brickwork—each line is so considered, so deliberate. You can feel the weight of history, the weight of the moment. Low’s cartoon really speaks to me about how art can serve as a time capsule. His work feels like a conversation across time.