Damn the Torpedo! 1942

Harry Gottlieb made this print called Damn the Torpedo! And just look at the marks! There is something so direct and unpretentious in the way he applied the colours to the paper. Like an intuitive response of the hand to the subject. The textures in this piece feel almost tangible. There are the soft swells of the water, and the hard lines of the ship in the background. Gottlieb is creating a world. But you can also feel the printing press at work here, pressing the image into being, there is a great sense of immediacy. Look how the colours overlap on the crest of the waves, the density of the blues. It's this physical interaction with materials that gives the image its particular force. This print reminds me a bit of work by Jacob Lawrence. Both share this way of using a limited palette of colours to evoke a whole world of experience. Ultimately, art is a conversation. It’s about different voices speaking to each other across time.