Betty Lamp c. 1941

This is Oscar Bluhme's 'Betty Lamp,' drawn with watercolor. The brown and grey hues give the piece a sort of antiquated feel. I’m really taken by the way Bluhme rendered this lamp. The colors are muted, and the details are so precise. You can almost feel the rust on the metal. The way the light catches the edges of the lamp and the cone, it's just beautiful. And the background is so simple, it really lets the lamp take center stage. I love how he has captured a mundane object and made it something really special. It reminds me a little of Charles Sheeler's precisionism, but with a softer touch. Bluhme is less mechanical and more attentive to the textures and surfaces. It's like he's saying, "Look at this object, really look at it." Art is like that, it makes you see the world in a new way.