Communications Old and New

Ethel Kirkpatrick

British printmaker Ethel Kirkpatrick depicts a rural landscape, featuring one of England's locks. There is a Narrowboat, a canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom, steered by the tiller. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods had virtually disappeared by 1970.

On the far side of the canal is a bank of power poles with multiple phone lines. In the middle ground a train approaches a rural station as a small bus waits to take on passengers. Overhead a plane soars high above the scene, just a dot in the sky. Each of the passengers or callers exists in his or her own time, each viewing the world as it passes by at its own speed.

The title,"Communications Old and New", makes a visual reference to all these elements, which in the 1930s were making dramatic upgrades monthly, much like the tech world of the 21st century.