Side Chair 1936

This is Florence Choate's ‘Side Chair’, made with watercolor. The lines are confident and descriptive, but it's the kind of confidence that comes from practice rather than arrogance, you know? The way the watercolor sits on the paper is so delicate. See how the colors of the seat cushion kind of bleed into each other. There is something really intriguing in how Choate depicts a three-dimensional object on a flat surface. The chair looks inviting, but its flatness reminds us that it is an illusion. It almost looks like something David Hockney might have made, but with a more traditional subject matter. It's got that same sense of looking at something familiar in a new way. To me, the beauty of a work like this is in its gentle invitation to see the world with fresh eyes.