Untitled (Man with bowler hat and woman with beret)

Art Historical Context

**Untitled (Man with bowler hat and woman with beret)**, a 1925 woodcut by American artist Sam Glankoff, captures the essence of interwar urban life through its simple yet evocative depiction of a couple. The man’s bowler hat nods to the era’s working-class or bourgeois style—think Charlie Chaplin’s iconic Tramp—while the woman’s beret suggests artistic bohemia. Created at a time when modernism was reshaping art, Glankoff’s print reflects the cultural vibrancy of the Roaring Twenties, blending everyday figures with a fresh, graphic sensibility. As a woodcut, this relief print showcases the medium’s raw power: Glankoff carved the image into a woodblock, inked the raised surfaces, and pressed it onto paper, yielding bold lines and textured contrasts ideal for expressing character and form. The intimate image size (283 x 198 mm on a 343 x 238 mm sheet) draws viewers close, emphasizing the handmade quality that distinguished early 20th-century prints from mass-produced imagery. Housed in the National Gallery of Art’s Reba and Dave Williams Collection (gift of Reba and Dave Williams), this untitled work highlights Glankoff’s early mastery of printmaking amid New York’s dynamic art scene. It invites us to ponder the quiet stories behind fashionable facades, a testament to woodcuts’ enduring role in modernist storytelling.