Lumber Car c. 1938

Paul Weller’s print, Lumber Car, is a dense world of black and white, composed of many different lines that suggest the volume, weight, and light of a group of men resting in what looks like a railroad car. I’m interested in how the artist made the print–maybe beginning with the basic shapes and lines, and then working towards the tonal variations we see. Did he start with the circles, or the figures? I imagine Weller thinking hard about these figures. The composition gives us such a dramatic vantage point, as though we're watching them from above, like a silent film. It feels like the artist is in conversation with other artists who have depicted laborers, like Käthe Kollwitz, or Honoré Daumier. There is a visual language that connects them. Weller and other printmakers use the medium as a form of expression, embracing the ambiguous and unpredictable marks that speak to us across time.