Ice House c. 1935 - 1943

Nan Lurie’s Ice House is an artwork made with simple lines which create this scene in black and white. Lurie is really taking us somewhere with this artwork. I’m thinking about how she might have made it—the ways she built up the tones to create a sense of place. When I look at the lines of the water, there's something very gestural, very intuitive in the way that she has moved the material across the surface, and how she's chosen to create such deep tonal variety from such a restricted palette. I'm interested in the vulnerability that she brings to this image. It makes me think about artists like Jacob Lawrence and his own approach to depicting scenes of everyday life. There’s a sense of storytelling here, a narrative unfolding, and a conversation happening across generations of artists. Painting is a form of embodied expression.