Parr was in his late sixties when Terry Ryan encouraged him to begin drawing in the spring of 1961. People and Geese belongs to the first body of work that followed, and already contains much of what would make his drawings so distinctive. Heavy graphite, repeated forms and a blunt, insistent handling give the sheet unusual physical force. The subject comes from the life Parr knew well: hunting, fishing and camp life supplied him with a store of remembered forms, recalled not as anecdote but as essentials.

There is little narrative here. Instead, Parr presents the elements of a goose hunt almost as a display. Four geese and nine people are set out across the sheet in loose, repeated rows. The geese, seen in profile, are reduced to a few firm shapes. The people face forward with broad heads, tent-shaped clothing, short outstretched arms and tiny legs and feet. Their similarity gives the group a strong visual unity, while small differences prevent repetition from becoming rigid.

The faces use the abbreviated “dot and dash” features Parr would return to throughout his career. Five of the nine heads are enclosed by a second circular form, thickened with repeated strokes of graphite. Whatever its original purpose, the device gives those figures a separate emphasis and breaks the group into shifting points of attention.

The figures float without ground or landscape but they are anything but insubstantial. Parr's hand beared down on the page. Graphite gathers along contours, doubles over forms and darkens around heads and bodies until the figures seem pressed into the paper. The marks feel immediate and physical, more rubbed and scored than delicately drawn. Space is loose, placement almost casual, yet the people and geese hold together with surprising strength. Parr’s world is pared back to bodies, birds, and marks, each one simple in shape but dense with touch.

FA