Winthrop Water Tower 1937

Lawrence Kupferman made this print of Winthrop Water Tower with graphic lines and a tonal range of grey. The way Kupferman uses these simple marks is so interesting. They create a sort of tension, especially when he depicts the bulk of the hill or the clouds. It feels like a build-up, a piling on of marks that then resolve into something solid, something that describes both form and atmosphere. Look at the way the lines of the hill fall into the shadows, it’s almost as if these dark lines are heavy, and you can feel the weight of them. It makes me think of the prints of someone like Piranesi, but stripped back to the essential. With Piranesi, the image is filled with details, whereas, here, it’s the process that is brought to the surface. It’s less about the tower itself, and more about the possibilities held in a single line, or the potential of a collection of marks.