No. 1 - Packingtown Series 1939

Charlotte Rothstein made this lithograph, No. 1 - Packingtown Series, sometime in the mid-20th century. It's a stark, black and white image, really emphasizing the process of mark-making, you can almost feel the stone beneath the image. The texture here is everything; the way Rothstein renders the hanging carcasses, it's not just about what they are, but about the weight and density of them. Look at the way the light catches on the curves, almost like a dance between the graphic and the gruesome. The lines vary in thickness, creating a real sense of depth and shadow. There's a brutal beauty in the way she captures these forms. I'm drawn to the marks that define the shape of the hanging meat. It's this tension between abstraction and representation. Rothstein reminds me of Kathe Kollwitz, someone who wasn't afraid to look at the darker side of life. Art isn't always about pretty pictures, sometimes it's about grappling with the hard stuff, and Rothstein does that with a fierce kind of grace.