Arm Chair 1935 - 1942

Curator: I find something immediately calming about the image. Perhaps it is the evenness of the linework. I can also imagine this Arm Chair's owner, tucked into it reading, and this evokes relaxation in my mind. Editor: And I, looking at it as an armchair *schema*, if you will, immediately think about ritual. Chairs have always been markers of status, places of honor, thrones, really, haven’t they? Curator: Absolutely. In this work by Elizabeth Curtis, dating from 1935 to 1942, the chair functions on many levels. At first glance, we see it reduced to geometrical parts, its various faces delineated by spare pencil lines. It reminds me a bit of those exploded axonometric architectural views of furniture we see in design journals. Editor: Except without the flash! No digital perfection here, right? And speaking of that linearity, I’m struck by how technical and academic the drawing feels. This isn't merely artistic impression; it is, instead, precise instructions for how to build it. There’s a sense of… almost yearning in that precise draughtsmanship. Curator: Definitely. One can also feel the hand of the artist guiding the pencil, as well. Yet I'd say there’s still an element of ornament in its design. It might have an interesting relationship with Art Deco which I understand peaked in the 1930s. I wonder what sort of symbolism might be evoked by the use of the form or the decoration on its front legs and back. Is the scale something that can suggest more specific inferences, maybe? Editor: True, the subtle Art Deco echo in the flourishes…it's whispering of something elegant, yet almost stubbornly un-flashy. Maybe there’s an understated resilience about it all, that calm certainty even through the somewhat chaotic and depressing times of those interwar years that created it. In my own way I imagine I would like to sit and be very pleased at having found myself at home. Curator: A piece of furniture that provides both functional comfort *and* a connection to artistic lineages, then! Thank you for those insights. Editor: Anytime! It's pieces like these that really get those armchair, pun intended, analyses flowing, don’t they?