Sugar Bowl c. 1937

Ludmilla Calderon made this drawing of a sugar bowl with graphite on paper sometime between 1870 and 1900. The softness of the medium really lends itself to the depiction of light and shadow. It’s amazing what you can do with just a few pencils! There’s a real sensitivity to the modeling in this piece, with the gradations of tone suggesting the play of light across the smooth surface of the bowl. The soft grays and subtle shifts in value give it an almost ethereal quality. Notice that Calderon signed their name in a fine, looping script in the bottom right hand corner. It’s so delicate that it almost blends into the ground. This kind of drawing reminds me of the work of Giorgio Morandi, who spent his whole life painting the same bottles and vases over and over again. Like Morandi, Calderon seems to find endless fascination in the subtle variations of light and form. For both artists, there’s a real sense of humility and devotion in their art, an acknowledgement that beauty can be found in the simplest of things.