Untitled (Seated Woman) 1938

Eleanor Coen made this lithograph of a seated woman, likely during the mid-20th century, using stone as her medium. The soft greyscale tones create a sense of quiet introspection. I imagine Coen working on the stone, feeling the give and take of the material. The figure emerges slowly, her form built up through layers of delicate marks. There's something so tender in the way she captures the woman’s posture, the gentle curve of her arm resting on the chair. It reminds me of other artists like Alice Neel, who also had a knack for capturing the inner lives of her sitters through their poses. Look at the way Coen uses lines to define the striped top, not quite solid, more like the idea of a pattern. It’s these kinds of gestures that make you feel the artist’s hand, the way she's thinking and feeling as she works. Like all artists, Coen is in conversation with the history of art, transforming and evolving.