Supper 1957 - 1961

Anatoli Kaplan made this lithograph called 'Supper' using grease crayons, and you can imagine him building up the image slowly, mark by mark, rubbing and scraping, through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Kaplan because he's working in black and white, and just like him, I like that restriction; it makes you invent. The marks are velvety and dry, and it must have been really fun to do. It reminds me of Kollwitz because of the social realist subject matter, but it also reminds me of Vuillard in the intimate interiority of the domestic scene. I wonder what Kaplan was thinking as he captured these subtle family dynamics. There’s a kind of ongoing conversation with other artists, across time, where we can inspire one another’s creativity. I feel that painting and printmaking are really forms of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.