Flask 1935 - 1942

This is William Kieckhofel's Flask, a drawing made with watercolor and graphite. Imagine Kieckhofel hunched over his desk, squinting, carefully rendering the curves and shadows of this flask. It's an object with a certain heft, you can feel it. The muted greens and blues give it a melancholic, antique feel, like something unearthed from a long-forgotten time capsule. The details are so precise, so lovingly rendered; I can almost feel the cool smoothness of the flask's surface. I wonder what Kieckhofel was thinking as he worked? Was he lost in the pure act of observation, the meditation of translating a three-dimensional object onto a flat surface? Was he perhaps thinking of other artists, who lovingly rendered humble items of everyday life? That tight palette feels like it's holding something back, like a secret whispered just below the surface. It's a conversation across time, an artist speaking to us through the language of line, color, and form.