Drunken Burches

Erik Obermann's wood engraving depicts three inebriated working-class men in rumpled suits, staggering and gesturing wildly. The central figure raises his fist in a pose of mock heroism while his companions lurch beside him, rendered in bold black lines against cream paper. This print belongs to a long tradition of social satire targeting the urban poor and laboring classes—a lineage descending from Hogarth's moral narratives through Daumier's lithographs of Parisian street life. Such imagery was common in early 20th-century popular prints, serving audiences as both entertainment and social commentary on urbanization and public morality.