Armchair 1937

This is Frank Wenger's Armchair, and it’s really all about the process, right? You can see the artist figuring it out as they go, using these clean, precise lines and a very contained palette of woody browns and tans. It feels like the artist is building up the image just like a carpenter would build up the chair itself, bit by bit. Look at the way the light falls on those rungs, the way the artist has carefully modulated the shading to give them dimension and weight. The seat itself, woven from straw, has this beautiful, almost tactile quality that invites you to reach out and touch it. Wenger is really thinking about how the object occupies space, and how its different surfaces catch the light. The way Wenger has rendered this object brings to mind the precision and clarity of someone like Edward Hopper. But, where Hopper’s work can feel kind of detached, this has a real warmth and intimacy to it. There's a sense of care and attention that just makes you want to pull up a chair and stay a while.