Untitled (Primitive Sculpted Heads - Still Life) c. 1936

Robert Gatrell made this print of a still life with sculpted heads. It's all about the interplay of textures and tones, created through the density of marks. I love to imagine Gatrell, in his studio, surrounded by these objects, turning them this way and that, trying to figure out how to translate their three-dimensionality onto a flat surface. It's a tricky problem, right? Like, how do you capture the heft and presence of a sculpture with just a bunch of lines? And it’s not just about representation – it's about feeling. There’s something almost melancholy in the way the heads are arranged, like they're having a silent conversation with each other. Maybe Gatrell was thinking about the passage of time or the weight of history. Who knows? That’s what’s so great about art – it invites us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the table. And we, in turn, join the great art conversation!