Cat Sleeping In A Corner 1902

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen made this print of a cat sleeping in a corner, we don’t know exactly when, but it is built from an economy of line. It’s like the bare bones of seeing. Looking closely, you can see how the texture of the cat’s fur is built with these very short, etched marks, and then he uses longer, more definite lines to show the form itself. The cat melts into the corner like it doesn’t have bones. The way the shading is built up is so simple and effective. It reminds me a little of late Guston. Not formally, but in its commitment to using a reduced language to communicate something very precise. There's this feeling in Steinlen's work that nothing is too grand or too humble to be a fitting subject, and that’s the kind of feeling that makes me want to pick up a pencil and get to work.