Shanghai, Racecourse c. 1940s

This is a print of Shanghai Racecourse by Emma Bormann, and you can almost feel the artist's hand at work, scratching and etching, maybe even wiping away to create that atmospheric sky. I can imagine Bormann, standing somewhere with a view, trying to capture the essence of this sprawling cityscape, maybe thinking about the way the buildings crowd together, or the light bouncing off the water. The city seems to teeter and stretch, all rendered in such a delicate balance of light and shadow. The contrast between the detailed foreground and the more loosely defined background gives a sense of depth and distance. Those tiny marks and the overall monochrome palette remind me of other printmakers like Whistler, who were also interested in capturing the mood and atmosphere of a place. All artists build on what others have done before, and in this artwork it shows.