L from the ABC Bunny 1933

This is "L from the ABC Bunny" by Wanda Gág, and it’s a lithograph. Look closely at how she makes marks; they build up with a kind of gentle, insistent pressure. It’s almost like she's coaxing the image into existence. The world Gág creates here feels tactile. The stump is knobbly and real, but then you've got these stylized plants and that wonderfully ominous cloud! And it's all rendered in this velvety black ink. Notice that the lizard on the stump is not as soft as the bunny. Its details are sharper, less forgiving. What's that about? Gág has this way of making the mundane feel magical and a little menacing all at once. It makes me think of Paula Modersohn-Becker, with her intense but simple approach to everyday subjects. With Gág, like Modersohn-Becker, the ordinary world becomes a space of intense feeling, where anything can happen.