The Old Post Office c. 1910s

This image, *The Old Post Office*, by James Henry Daugherty is like a memory, etched in lines and tones. I can imagine the artist hunched over his plate, the acid biting into the metal, revealing this city scene. Daugherty, he was born in 1889, so he saw cities change, felt them grow like a living thing. Here, the buildings stack up, layer upon layer, a dense web of human activity. The lines are loose and free, almost like a sketch, but they capture the weight and presence of those buildings. I wonder what he was thinking as he created this? Did he feel the same way I do when I’m painting – caught between control and chance, between the planned and the accidental? There’s a kind of joy in the making, in watching the image emerge, like a conversation between the artist and the world. Daugherty’s work reminds us that painting isn’t just about representation. It’s about feeling, about being in the world, and about sharing that experience with others.