OH Murmansk 1942

Ernest Hopf’s ‘OH Murmansk’ is a print of some kind, maybe a lithograph, but you can see the hand of the artist there in the layering of the colours and marks. It's mostly blues and greys, giving it an almost monochrome feel, but then there are these small pops of yellow and red in the flags that grab your attention. It’s easy to see that Hopf was interested in what colours can do to a picture and to you. The sky and the sea are full of grey marks, but the waves feel very different from the planes in the sky, and the floating cloud puffs. They are like a code that somehow you can read. I love how he captures the feeling of a vast, open ocean under an oppressive sky with so few elements. It feels a bit like some of the early 20th century printmakers like the Vorticists, but without their hard edges, more like Whistler, but with planes dropping bombs. Anyway, it’s a very cool image, maybe there is something there.