Industrial Scene #1 1948

Morton Diamondstein made this print called Industrial Scene #1 and signed it in 1949. It looks like he used a screenprinting technique or maybe even a stencil; there’s a handmade, anything-goes vibe to the image. The colours are laid down in these flat, kind of crude shapes. Look at that sky, it’s like a kid got a hold of the printing press! But there’s a real skill in simplifying what you see, right? In this print, the city becomes a series of shapes and colours. And the colours create a mood, a gritty beauty in this scene of factories and smokestacks. I'm thinking of Stuart Davis, another painter who found beauty in the everyday, in the signs and symbols of the city. It’s cool how artists can take the same subject, the world around them, and make something totally new, something that makes you see things differently. And that’s what art is all about, right? Opening your eyes.