Trackside - Chicago 1947

Editor: This is Kent Hagerman's 1947 lithograph, "Trackside - Chicago". The print depicts a bustling train station beneath the imposing skyscrapers of Chicago. It feels both intensely modern and yet nostalgic. What jumps out at you? Curator: It's a dreamscape, isn’t it? Like stepping into a memory… smoky, grand, and slightly melancholic. I get this sensation that Hagerman wasn't just documenting a scene, but evoking a feeling, a collective experience of a city throbbing with industry and ambition. Do you get the feeling it almost dissolves? Editor: I see what you mean. It's not sharply defined. The edges almost bleed. Is that intentional? Curator: Absolutely. It's the artist surrendering to the impression, a conscious choice to portray a sensory overload. The layering of the locomotives with the towering skyscrapers, creating a compressed perspective that mirrors the urban compression of modern life. It also captures the rapid pace of change, this moment between the age of steam and the dawn of… well, something faster, slicker. A whole new kind of movement. Almost like looking into the future. Editor: That's interesting. The steam trains are so different from the streamlined diesel locomotives in the foreground. Curator: Exactly. It’s like a farewell kiss to the industrial revolution, a quiet hello to a yet-unimagined future. What will those figures standing at the platform find on the other side? Who are they, and what is Chicago whispering to them? I just love these visual layers and almost tangible tension between the then and the now. Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way. It does add another layer to the title. Curator: Art does what you let it do! Next time you hear a train whistle, let it trigger a small movie in your brain. Now *that's* seeing.