Wanda Gág’s World

In 1923, Gág began experimenting with sandpaper, drawing directly on the rough surface and using it as a plate from which she printed lithographs. She described what she referred to as her “sandpaper discovery” in a diary entry:

“If anyone else has ever done it, it has never come to my knowledge . . . I bought some sandpaper with the idea of drawing on it with lithographic crayon. Prints can be made from it, like from a lithographic stone, and the resulting print has somewhat the texture of a rough lithograph. . . . My mind, which is of a very economical and thrifty turn in these matters, immediately set about looking for some use to put this paper to. I had spent about 25¢ for it, and I was too poor to waste even a quarter.” —Gág, diary entry, 1925