W.P.A. Workers c. 1935 - 1943

Abraham Jacobs made this W.P.A. print, with its strong diagonals and rounded shapes, sometime in the 20th century. I can imagine him at work with the tools of his trade, carving into a block, wrestling with the image to set these workers in place. I love the mix of darkness and light, the way it makes them feel solid and present, but also like ghosts in some ways. The composition is so strong, pushing our eyes to the right, where the action is, the worker with the cart is the anchor for it all. You can feel the weight of the ground, the air, the effort of the task. It seems like he’s thinking about Marsden Hartley’s figurative work, but taking it somewhere new and personal. Each artist has their own language, their own way of speaking through their work. And it’s a language that we can all learn to understand, if we take the time to look and listen.