Jitterbug
Lou Barlow American
Formerly known as Louis Breslow American
Not on view
Barlow was a lifelong New Yorker whose printmaking career spanned eight decades—he lived to 103. This 1939 image, likely inspired by a visit to a Harlem nightclub, celebrates a dance craze of the 1930s and 1940s. Two African-American couples dance to music supplied by musicians cropped by the print’s bottom edge; a male singer appears behind a dancer at left. Stylized, flattened forms convey a Jazz Age sensibility, and the choice of wood engraving allowed the artist to use delicate white lines against a dark ground to make the figures seem weightless within the dimly lit interior.
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