Organizational Advances c. 1933 - 1936

Albert Potter made "Organizational Advances" – this black and white print – some time before his early death in 1937. Imagine Potter, perhaps a young man then, hand-carving the woodblock. Cutting away at it, he’s thinking about the city, about labour and money. The marks are insistent and sharp, each one a conscious decision, a tiny act of protest. You can feel the pressure of the tool, digging into the wood. The texture created is quite something. Look at the faces. They are almost skull-like, lost in the march of consumerism. They carry signs advertising "Venus Beauty," "Snappy Clothes," and "Loans" as though they were tombstones. The artist's attitude is clear. It reminds me of work by artists like Otto Dix and Käthe Kollwitz, who also depicted the harsh realities of urban life. The work of these artists is an ongoing conversation, a visual chorus speaking across time. They remind us that art can be a powerful form of social commentary and the artist’s mark is a kind of embodied expression, a record of their time.