Untitled (Landscape with Two Horses)

Renowned for his “direct” stone carvings, the modernist artist John B. Flannagan was also an accomplished wood engraver. He produced this farm scene while living in Ireland in the early 1930s. Two horses—one dark, one light—stand in a paddock behind a fieldstone wall in an undulating rural landscape. Flannagan used a flattened perspective and highly compressed pictorial space to emphasize the organic, abstract qualities of his black-and-white design.

Flannagan was the leading U.S. proponent of “direct carving, ” a technique in which the sculptor carves directly on the material without the use of a preparatory model or sketch. Whether carving stone or wood blocks for a print like this one, Flannagan, like other direct carvers, prized spontaneity and the idea of truth to materials, which often resulted in simple, abstract works.