Corner of Lake and La Salle Streets, Chicago, Marine Bank Building in the Year 1864 Possibly 1927

Raoul Varin made this print of Lake and La Salle Streets in Chicago sometime after it looked like this in 1864. I’m always curious about process, and I’m imagining Varin making this print and thinking about what it would have been like to be in that exact place in 1864. The creamy neutral tones lend a kind of wistful nostalgia to the scene, making the brownstones, horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians look antique. It's easy to imagine the artist thinking about time, how it feels, and the ways it changes a place. There's a lot of detail in the architecture, and there is an accuracy to the details of the people and objects that populate the street. Varin is participating in an ongoing conversation with artists of the past about how to represent a world that is quickly changing, something I, too, think a lot about in my own work.