Plate - "Orchard House, Catskills" c. 1936

This plate, "Orchard House, Catskills," by Helmut Hiatt, is a real head-scratcher of a treasure. Look closely, and you'll see how Hiatt approaches mark-making with this incredible balance of precision and letting go. The texture and the surface? They’re crucial here. The monochromatic surface reveals the physical process of the medium. Look at the way the building sits on the hill, a series of quick marks delineate form, but not so much as to describe form, giving it this weird almost floating quality. Thinking about Hiatt’s approach, I’m reminded of folk artists like Joseph Yoakum. Yoakum made these imaginary landscapes, and there's a similar sense of dreamlike distance in both their works. Ultimately, the work embraces a whole bunch of interpretations, resisting any one single, fixed meaning.