Mott St., NY c. 1925

Jerome Myers made this print of Mott Street in New York using etching, and it's like a visual diary entry. It's so immediate, so process-driven, you can almost see him scratching away at the plate, trying to capture a moment. The blacks are rich but worn, and the lines are kind of scraggly and wonderfully imperfect. You can feel the grit of the city, but it's not harsh; it's like a fond memory, slightly faded. Look at the way he renders the figures, they're built up from the ground with short strokes and smudges. Everything is tonally consistent, but the tonal range is very narrow, and this is where the magic lives. The ice cream cart in the foreground, with "Johns Ice Cream" scrawled across it, anchors the whole scene. It’s a little off-kilter, and that's what makes it sing. Myers reminds me of someone like Adolph Menzel, who had the same knack for finding beauty in the everyday. This is a piece that invites you to wander and get lost in the details, and you always end up finding something new.