Will Barnet (A Sketchbook, 1932-1934)

These intimate drawings portraying Central Park during the Great Depression have never been exhibited or published—until now. The drawings have been stored in Will Barnet’s studio for decades, always serving as a reference and source of inspiration for later projects (like the etchings included here) but never coming to light as an independent body of work.Barnet’s work has undergone many transformations —from figurative pen-and-ink drawings and etchings to contemplative paintings—but a persistent interest in clarity of form and energetic line has remained throughout. Each human figure on these pages is in motion—sailors and young women, mothers, fathers, and children embrace or pull apart, adjust their hair playfully, and fix gazes on one another, communicating silently. Barnet’s drawings tell multiple stories at once, peering just beyond the various attitudes of sensual enjoyment to find traces of the longing, love, or worry that temper our experience of every paradise.