The People Play-Summer 1938

Benton Spruance made this lithograph called ‘The People Play-Summer’ using stone, sometime in the mid 20th century. You know, Spruance is playing with us, making the mundane somehow monumental. Look at the way he builds up the image with these tiny, insistent marks. There's a real physicality to it, a sense of the artist's hand at work. You can almost feel the grain of the lithographic stone. The figures aren't idealized, they're just bodies, enjoying the summer. There is a real embrace of texture and detail, the soft, smudgy shadows giving way to areas of stark clarity. It reminds me of some of the social realist painters of the time, but with a kind of personal twist. This piece feels honest, like a snapshot of a real moment. It reminds us that art doesn't always have to be about grand statements; sometimes it can just be about looking. It's this exchange of ideas, this back-and-forth, that keeps art alive.