Evening Throng

Robert L. Cormack

Robert Cormack uses two separate plates and a combination of etching, softground, and aquatint to illustrate a narrative of the stark urban landscape. Using a graphically dynamic style that borrows from the early 20th century Machine Age to WPA muralism, Cormack renders pedestrian figures in equally bold lines and shapes, creating parallels between the isolated human figures as they go about their day.

Robert Cormack's work often draws from his memories of his early life in Cuthbert, Georgia, where he lived until transferring from the University of Georgia to Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1950s. Additionally, his own experience in the U.S. Navy and as a blue collar worker often influences his subject matter, his style echoing that of the WPA era muralists and graphic artists in which the everyday man and woman, and the significance of everyday labor, are upheld as worthy subjects.

Cormack's formal art education took place at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at the height of Abstract Expressionism's fruition in the United States. After taking time to raise a family and work as a unionized postal worker, Cormack retired in 1995 and took up art once again, turning his attention to the printmaking media. He lives and and works in Santa Rosa, CA.