This untitled artwork is an outstanding pen and ink drawing by Eldzier Cortor from his scarce, early Chicago period. Cortor was a high school classmate of artists Charles White and Charles Sebree at Englewood High School. Cortor later studied drawing at the Chicago Art Institute, and taught drawing as a founding member of the Southside Community Art Center during the WPA. Cortor depicted a similar young couple, flattened against the pictorial plane, in his Southern Landscape (Southern Flood), ca. 1939–1940. His painting in tempera on gessoed board was an extension of this drawing, utilizng line and small brushmarks. Cortor drew from life and depicted his experiences of Chicago - other pen and ink drawings from the period include his Coming Home from Work in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. This drawing was likely executed before his 1939-40 Rosenwald travel fellowship down to the Sea Islands in Georgia.
We would like to thank Michael Cortor, the artist's son, and Corinne Jennings of Kenkeleba House for reviewing this drawing.
