Kerr Eby, born Tokyo, Japan 1889-died - Hatchet Cove, Maine - 1938 - T-Shirt

This design brings together two sides of American printmaker Kerr Eby's work: the wartime etching and the quiet New England coastline he painted and printed in Hatchet Cove, Maine.

Visual Elements & Composition

Eby worked in etching and aquatint, and the image is built on tonal variation rather than flat colour. Light and dark passages separate figures, landscape and sky, so the eye moves through the picture in layers. The subjects follow the catalogue's categories: portraits of individuals, maritime scenes of boats and water, and the rugged landscape of the coast.

Meaning & Symbolism

Eby served as a frontline artist during the First World War, and his battlefields and exhausted troops were made as direct testimony against the romanticising of war. His coastal scenes carry the opposite pole of that work, a longing for peace and stability expressed through the watermen who worked the Maine shore. Read together, the military and maritime subjects show the range of early twentieth-century American printmaking, from documentary reportage to emotive fine art.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A printed tee is seen up close, held against the body and read at conversation distance. That suits an etching, where the fine tonal detail rewards a closer look and the scenes unfold gradually rather than all at once. Wearing the artwork puts a piece of Eby's record of war and coastal life in everyday view.