Untitled (Rainbow After The Storm) c. 1940s

Harry Newman Wickey made this drawing of a rainbow after the storm with graphite on paper. You can see that he’s built up the image from a multitude of tiny marks, which is really interesting. The material aspect of the work is its texture and the way the light falls across it. Look at the clouds, they’re almost tactile, like they’re emerging from the paper. Then, right in the middle, this glowing rainbow. It’s a real tour-de-force of graphite rendering, it is possible to imagine the artist carefully controlling the pressure of the graphite on the page. There’s something almost romantic about the subject matter, the idea of a rainbow after a storm and perhaps you could find resonances with other artists such as Whistler who explored similar tonal landscapes in his etchings. Art’s always an ongoing conversation right? Always up for grabs.