Untitled

About this work

You see a tangle of lines—some sharp, some smudged—pressed into a sheet of paper. Faces and bodies blur together, almost like a crowd seen through a foggy window. Birmelin made this in 1960, when printmakers were pushing etching beyond neat portraits. Here, the metal plate was scratched and bitten with acid in layers, so the ink holds both crisp edges and soft, grainy shadows. The effect feels raw, as if the image is still coming into focus. Look up *etching* to see how artists use acid and needles to turn metal into art.