Powers, Philadelphia, American League, from the White Border series (T206) for the American Tobacco Company 1909 - 1911

The American Tobacco Company made this small baseball card, Powers, from Philadelphia, probably using a lithographic print process. I'm really drawn to the way they captured the essence of the player’s likeness with such minimal means. Check out the colors: a soft, almost pastel palette of blues, yellows and browns which create this dreamy, timeless feel. There's something about the texture too, a kind of visible grain, that reminds me of early printmaking. The way they used line to define the contours of his uniform is really beautiful. It’s like a map, charting the form with a confident, economic stroke. It reminds me of some of those early modernist portraits where artists were trying to capture something essential about a person, a feeling more than a photographic likeness. Think of someone like Marsden Hartley, distilling the essence of a figure down to bold, geometric forms. This card does something similar, capturing the spirit of the game in this tiny frame. It's a reminder that art, in all its forms, is an ongoing conversation.