Abandoned House 1939

Lawrence Kupferman’s ‘Abandoned House’ is an etching, made sometime in the mid-twentieth century with ink and a metal plate. Imagine Kupferman bent over the plate, his hand moving with precision. The cross-hatching builds up a vision of this forlorn house, a testament to time and neglect. You feel for Kupferman, don’t you? What was he thinking as he etched each line? There’s a tenderness, a quiet observation of the textures of decay, those broken windows, and the skeletal tree reaching upwards. There’s a story etched in every mark. Notice the obsessive detail. The linear quality almost verges on abstraction. It reminds me of Piranesi's architectural fantasies. Kupferman seems to be saying something about memory, loss, and the passage of time. Artists throughout history have been drawn to the subject, constantly reimagining and inspiring one another. It reminds me of a quote by Anne Carson, “The truth is in the clumsiness of the gesture.” It’s this imperfect, human touch that moves us.