Chain Gang 1940 - 1941

James Baare Turnbull made this print, of what appears to be a chain gang, sometime in the 1940s. The hatching, the tonal variations, and the overall dark moodiness is really set by the hand-worked nature of the printmaking process. You can almost feel the artist working the plate to create these marks. What hits me here is how the surface is built up in tiny marks to create an image that is both brutal and kind of dreamy. The contrast between the darks and lights is really working hard here, especially on the tree stump they are attacking, where the rings become almost hypnotic. It’s a reminder of labor, the way time gets marked on bodies, on environments, and in the process of artmaking itself. I think of Kathe Kollwitz and the German Expressionists here, but really Turnbull is working in his own distinctly American mode, and I respect that. It’s like he is saying something quiet, but powerful.