This dynamic lithograph - dimensional, energetic, touching on objective and reeling back into the fully abstract - is a prime example of the early influence of Abstract Expressionism and a precursor to Reuben Kadish’s exploration of sculpture. He uses a multitude of textures to suggest everything animalistic forms to smooth objects that appear carved from stone, and throughout, a thread of untethered automatic line springs forward, connecting the disparate elements in an elaborate dance.
Kadish would continue to be drawn to the sculptural in all of his print work, even when depicting trees and still lifes. No matter what the medium, a sensuous dimensionality remained.
As a WPA artist during the Great Depression, Kadish executed the brilliant and still extant A Dissertation on Alchemy mural in the Chemistry Building at San Francisco State University in 1937. It proved to be his solo San Francisco commission despite submitting twenty odd designs for the WPA. "[My designs] were too flamboyant, too revolutionary, too this, too that," recalled Kadish in an Archives of American Art interview.