Damn the Torpedo! 1942

Harry Gottlieb made this image, Damn the Torpedo!, with a dark palette and churning forms. The grey and blue tones evoke a sense of dread, while the white highlights suggest moments of struggle and survival amidst the chaos. The painting process itself is a kind of wreckage; the artist battling to make something of it, building up the image from what feels like total destruction. Gottlieb's world is one of sinking ships, drowning men, and a submarine lurking in the background. This is a tense and charged drama. I wonder what Gottlieb was thinking when he made this? Were they imagining their own demise? You get the sense that this is part of a larger series of images that build on the theme of destruction and chaos. Maybe artists like Goya were on his mind when creating this? Artists build on each other and have dialogues across time, which inspires their own creativity. I love that painting embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations. Gottlieb’s work is a conversation, one that shifts and evolves over time.