Frontispiece 1957 - 1961

Anatoli Kaplan made this black and white print called "Frontispiece," and it feels like a world built from tiny dots. It’s the kind of mark-making that reminds you art is a process, not just a picture. Look at how Kaplan uses the lithographic crayon to create texture. It’s thick and velvety in the figures, but then softens into a blurry background that could be a landscape, or maybe just a feeling. The two men stand close, but they’re lost in their own worlds, one looking up, the other holding a bag tied with string, weighed down. I keep coming back to the way Kaplan lets the white of the paper breathe through the dark ink. It's like he's showing us that absence can be just as powerful as presence, kinda like, in a way, being an artist. Think of Käthe Kollwitz, whose prints also have this incredible emotional weight and intensity. It’s art as an echo of life, full of questions and no easy answers.