Untitled (Abstraction) 1946

Robert C. Osborn made this abstract lithograph on stone, sometime around 1946. I like to think about how this image was brought into being, through a back and forth process of layering marks. Osborn laid down these tonal washes, building up a density of shades and textures with the lithographic crayon. I can almost see him, leaning over the stone, adding these marks, trying to coax out the feeling he was after. He’s definitely got some biomorphic forms floating around, and these squiggly lines that remind me of Joan Miró, or maybe Arshile Gorky, like he’s riffing off their conversations. It’s as if he's thinking about surrealism, but taking it somewhere else. Artists are always inspired by each other, echoing and transforming, so it makes sense. And that is how artists learn from, build on, and challenge one another’s ideas, creating art that speaks to both the past and the present.