Money c. 1929

Henry J. Glintenkamp made this image, ‘Money,’ using wood engraving; the date is unknown. I love the way he’s thought about artmaking as a process, each careful cut with a burin building to the final image. The whole thing is starkly graphic, black and white, with these towering coins looming over the figures below. Look at how the lines carve out space, giving volume to those coins and weight to the stacks of bills. You can almost feel the pressure, the tension of exchange. There’s a person down there, arms outstretched, like they’re trying to balance it all, but the looming coins seem to say otherwise. This reminds me of other artists like Otto Dix, who were also grappling with social commentary through printmaking. I love how art invites us to question what we see, how there can be a multitude of ways of seeing.