Miners Commonwealth c. 1946

Hubert Davis made this drawing, Miners Commonwealth, with pencil on paper, and it's the kind of drawing where you can almost smell the graphite. Look at how the dark, scribbled clouds are echoed in the street below, as if the sky is mirrored in a puddle, or maybe it's meant to be churned-up earth. The lone figure, presumably a miner, stands with his back to us, but he feels like the focal point. The artist has used short, choppy strokes to give the figure a sense of weight, and the way the light catches his shoulder makes him look stoic, strong, like he’s weathered a storm – or perhaps he is about to face one. Notice also the artist’s signature and the drawing’s title handwritten in soft graphite along the bottom edge; this reminds us of the direct relationship between hand, eye, and image, with no digital interference. Davis’s earlier work, like his lithographs from the 1930s, often captured scenes of industry and labor, reminiscent of the social realism of artists like Kathe Kollwitz. But there's also something about the expressive handling of light and shadow here that reminds me of Piranesi's etchings of imaginary prisons – you know, art that embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations over fixed meanings.