Bread Line 1931

Margaret Lowengrund created this lithograph, "Bread Line," sometime in the 1930s. What strikes me is the all-over, soft, grey tone and the marks that are like tiny, nervous scribbles. The whole image feels like it was coaxed into being through a process of accumulation. Up close, you can see how Lowengrund uses the lithographic crayon to build up the forms of the figures, one tiny mark at a time. It’s a bit like Seurat’s pointillism, but with a more anxious energy. Look at the way the figures in the line seem to blend into one another, their individual identities almost lost in the crowd, this speaks to me of the social alienation and economic precarity of the time. The artist seems to echo Kathe Kollwitz in her dedication to representing the suffering of ordinary people. But where Kollwitz is all about the drama, Lowengrund adopts a more subtle approach, inviting us to contemplate the quiet desperation of the scene. Ultimately, this is a piece about empathy, a call to see the humanity in those who are often overlooked.