Bride's Bureau c. 1936

Kurt Melzer’s ‘Bride’s Bureau’ comes to us in watercolor and graphite, as a set of architectural drawings that are so precise and yet tender. I feel like I can imagine Melzer at work here, patiently layering the washes of brown and gray, letting the wood grain emerge stroke by stroke. You can sense the weight of the wood, the cool touch of the marble top, and the soft sheen of the mirror. What do you think he was thinking about while making this? Was he imagining the bride, her anticipation, her excitement? The intimacy of her dressing room? I love how the lines of the drawings intersect with the more fluid and organic rendering of the bureau itself. It’s almost like a dance between precision and feeling. Melzer reminds me of a few painters who really understood the beauty of mundane objects, like Morandi, who painted bottles over and over, each time revealing something new. And like them, Melzer invites us to really see and appreciate the quiet beauty of the world around us. It's all one big conversation.