The Island c. 1928

Margaret Lowengrund made this print, The Island, sometime in the mid-20th century. Look at the matrix of fine lines, like a nervous system laid bare, or a city seen through a rain-streaked window. It's all about the process. You know, the magic of printmaking, especially etching, is how the artist coaxes an image out of a resistant surface. Here, the metal plate is her canvas, and each tiny scratch and bite becomes a building, a street, a memory. See how the lines thicken and darken as they reach the center of the island, the heart of the city? It’s a physical thing, this print. That dense cluster of marks makes me think of Piranesi's architectural fantasies, where the city becomes a labyrinth of the mind. But here, there’s something real, something grounded, even in the abstraction. It's not just a city; it's an island, a world unto itself, captured in a web of lines.