Untitled (Work in the Fields) c. 1930

Joseph John Paul Meert made this untitled drawing of workers in a field with graphite on paper. There’s something about the sheer labor of those marks creating an image of other people’s labor. Look at the repeated strokes defining the overalls and the field. Meert is really working that pencil, with the tonal variations giving weight and form to the workers. I’m drawn to the figure front and center, bent over with the basket. You can almost feel the pull in his back and legs. The graphite feels solid and yet it is also suggestive. It lets the eye fill in the gaps. This feels connected to the work of the Social Realists, the way they focused on the daily lives and struggles of working people. But unlike them, it's not a political statement. More like a record of the endless cycle of work, rest, work. It’s an open question, not a closed one.