Adobe House c. 1933

Dorothy Kent made this lithograph, Adobe House, using crayon, tusche and scraping. It's how she's built the form, and how the light and shade move across it, that really gets me. The texture of the crayon creates soft, granular surfaces that suggest both the solidity of the adobe and the atmospheric haze of the desert. The lines are so carefully placed and distributed that the forms feel weighty and present. See how the light seems to cling to the front of the adobe house, almost making it glow, while the shadows on the side suggest the passage of time, the slow movement of the sun across the landscape. This piece reminds me of the precision and clarity of Charles Sheeler's photographs and paintings, but there's something else at play here too. Perhaps it's the dreamlike quality that Kent manages to evoke with such simple means. Art is often more about asking questions than providing answers, and Kent's work is no exception.