Franzosische Kunstausstellung zu Krefeld 1907

This poster advertising a French art exhibition in Krefeld was created by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen. What grabs me is how the figure and the ground are kind of meshed together by the hatching. It’s like a really deft pencil drawing, almost raw in its immediacy. Look at the area behind her head, and notice how the lines kind of explode outward, but then they also make up the shadow around her face and neck. This blending of figure and ground creates an interesting tension. There's a kind of rawness to it, a directness that I appreciate as a painter myself. You know, this reminds me a little bit of Käthe Kollwitz, another artist who was using printmaking to capture the everyday, the gritty, and the emotional. It's not about perfection, but about expression, about feeling. And that, for me, is what art is all about – feeling.