Man Overboard (Drowning Man)

1981

Richard Bosman

(Australian, born India 1944)

America

woodcut

John L. Severance Fund 1990.124

Catalogue raisonné: Stevens 24

Location: not on view

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Description

Beginning in the mid-1970s, the desire for more tactile surfaces led some American printmakers to revive the use of woodcut. Like the German Expressionists at the beginning of the 20th century, Bosman likes his prints to have a handmade, chiseled appearance, reflecting the ragged gouged areas and splintered edges left on the woodblock. This powerful, agitated style of gestural immediacy parallels the emotional content of the desperate situations he depicts. Although the narrative in Bosman's scenes is not specified, the allusion to danger and a mysterious aura provoke the viewer's imagination. The figure in Man Overboard, dressed in a suit and tie but shoeless, plummets headfirst toward moonlit waters beside an ocean liner. Frozen in time between the unknown cause and climax of the situation, the image remains unresolved and full of suspense.