Built-in Drawers and Cupboards c. 1938

Alfred H. Smith made this watercolour of some Built-in Drawers and Cupboards sometime in his long lifetime. I’m curious about the act of painting itself. How did this artwork come into being? How does the process of making a painting build a site of inquiry for the artist and viewer? I can imagine Smith, carefully mixing pigments and methodically applying them to the paper, layering washes to capture the light and shadow on the wooden surfaces. He might have been thinking about the geometry of the space. There is the door frame, the skirting boards, the floorboards, and the built-in drawers, all rendered with a careful attention to the details of this interior space. It's a world of right angles. I wonder what it felt like to make it? I find myself relating this image to the work of other painters like Vilhelm Hammershøi, who also painted interiors. Ultimately, artists engage in an ongoing conversation and exchange ideas, inspiring one another’s creativity across time.