Olin Dows "Washing Women" Taxco, Mexico, 1933 Wood Engraving

This striking wood engraving by Olin Dows (1904-1981) titled Women Washing (Taxco) is one of a series of prints the artist created while traveling through Mexico and Central America in the 1930s. As with many of his works in this series, the figures are anonymous, their faces veiled (I assume these women are nuns), suggesting multitudes of such women, engaged in similarly laborious tasks, and also imparting a sense of reverence toward them. Through posture (in stark contrast to the lounging men above), interplay of positive and negative/light and dark, line weight and density, and composition as a whole, Dows imparts the women and their work with a quiet dignity, indeed a holiness, while creating a simply stunning, masterfully executed graphic image.  Dows' biography is fascinating, including for the fact that he was close to the Roosevelts, served as a member of the administration during the Great Depression, and became a central figure in several aid-to-artist programs prior to the F