Cement Works 1938

A. Grant Arnold made this print of a Cement Works, and it’s all about greys, blacks, and whites on a textured paper. It's like Arnold built this cement works himself, line by line. I can imagine him out there with his pencils and paper, squinting at the scene, figuring out how to translate all that industrial complexity into marks on a page. There's a real push-and-pull between representation and abstraction here. The subject is so solid and real, but the way it's rendered is all about surface and texture. The hatching creates the atmosphere of a place, with its subtle tonal shifts and contrasts. The more you look, the more you get lost in the details – the way the lines create a sense of depth, the way the shadows define the forms. It’s a reminder that art isn’t just about what we see, but how we see it.