Pa. German Shaving Basin 1937

Eugene Shellady made this painting, Pa. German Shaving Basin, with paint on paper sometime in the 20th century. It's a painting of two shaving basins, one stacked on top of the other, both in a creamy yellow colour with images of dark green and brown flowers. I'm thinking about Shellady and why he made this painting. Was he trying to record and remember? I can see him working at his easel in a kind of trance, losing himself in the repetition of the image and the careful delineation of the curves and shapes of the basins. It's the kind of painting that emerges slowly, finding its own way. The paint is thinly applied, in simple strokes, and the texture is flat. Each brushstroke seems like a gentle caress. There's something really moving about the simple composition of the two basins, in their muted color palette, and the way Shellady translated this functional object into something beautiful. It reminds me of the work of other artists interested in folk art, like Mike Kelley, who understood that artists don't work in isolation, but are always in conversation, building on the ideas and gestures of those who came before.