Jazz Band 1932

Curator: Welcome. Here we have Laura I. Woolsey's woodcut print, titled "Jazz Band," created in 1932. Its bold abstraction and cityscape elements are characteristic of the Art Deco era. Editor: Whoa, talk about graphic! It's like visual music—the black and white just jives, you know? It’s angular and frantic but cool. Curator: Indeed. During the early 20th century, urban themes became increasingly important for artists, often serving to depict the new modernity and all of its socio-economic and political complexity. Prints allowed such works to be accessible to wider audiences. Editor: It's interesting that the humans seem secondary here, mere shapes—and I think that tells you a lot about the human element when put up against machines, music, cities... Makes you wonder what the role of music or even just joy plays in our fight with the new machine age! Curator: Exactly, the relationships between people and technology, production, leisure are important. In fact, Woolsey was also involved in social activism, advocating for civil liberties, social and economic justice and integration, this might explain the prominence and positioning of non-figurative urban elements as subjects. Editor: Art Deco was the thing! Those zig-zag lines and geometric shapes scream 1930s. Curator: Absolutely! From architecture to graphic design, the style manifested itself widely to showcase progress and luxury! Also it has to be noted that abstraction became a potent visual language as it provided creative freedom from merely reproducing what one sees and promoted visual and symbolic representations of social and economic concepts instead. Editor: This image makes me wanna dance the Charleston in a smoky jazz club... with robots. Or, well, maybe with the figures IN the prints! What do you take away when you look at it, as an Historian? Curator: For me, it’s the piece's testament to the anxieties and the euphoria that were hand-in-hand back then. Laura I. Woolsey captured not just a style, but an era. Editor: Beautiful! So even art is another lens through which we understand history...and it sounds better too, with a sax solo in the background!