East River 42nd Street c. 1932

Bernhard Gutmann made this etching, East River 42nd Street, and right away I’m struck by how the network of lines creates this gritty industrial scene. It's almost as if the city itself is being drawn into existence, piece by piece. The whole image is a tangle of marks, all these buildings, cranes and boats rendered in such a way that you can almost feel the weight and scale of it all. The lines feel almost chaotic, but somehow they coalesce into a picture, just like life, right? I mean look at the the way the smoke is described. It's almost dissolving into the sky, a jumble of tiny lines that suggest movement and change. It makes me think of Joseph Pennell and his industrial scenes, but with a looser, more restless energy. It’s like Gutmann is saying, "Here's the city, messy, complicated, and always in flux." For me, this piece is a reminder that art, like life, is an ongoing experiment.