Untitled 1971

This lithograph, made by George McNeil, features sweeping, gestural marks in black and white. I can just picture McNeil wrestling with the stone, coaxing this intense, figure out of it, through trial, error, and maybe even a little bit of intuition. Looking at this, I sympathize with McNeil. What was he thinking when he made it? Maybe he was trying to capture a fleeting moment, an expression, or a feeling that words just couldn't grasp. The texture here is everything. The ink looks thick in some places, almost like it’s been scrubbed onto the surface, and thin in others, creating a dynamic play of light and shadow. That one gesture, where the figure's arm bends—it's so expressive, communicating a feeling of tension and release all at once. McNeil was part of a generation that was really pushing the boundaries of figuration. You can see the influence of the Abstract Expressionists. It’s like they were all in conversation, bouncing ideas off each other. This piece reminds us that art is never created in a vacuum; it's an ongoing exchange of ideas across time. It embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.