Auntie Susie Reading

Art Historical Context

Francis Dodd’s 1910 drypoint *Auntie Susie Reading* captures a quiet moment of domestic life with remarkable sensitivity. The print shows a woman absorbed in her book, her figure gently modeled through the soft, velvety lines that drypoint naturally produces. Created just before the First World War, the work reflects the Edwardian interest in intimate, everyday subjects rendered with technical precision. Drypoint, an intaglio technique in which the artist scratches directly into a metal plate, allows the burr raised by the needle to hold ink and create rich, atmospheric tones. Dodd exploits t...