Windsor Desk Armchair c. 1937

Eugene Croe made this watercolor drawing of a Windsor Desk Armchair. It's rendered in delicate washes of brown and tan. You can almost feel the grain of the wood, even though it's just on paper. The artist is interested in form, and each mark follows the overall design to render the chair in a way that it becomes more than the idea of a chair. The use of color lends the piece a sense of warmth. You can see, especially where the chair legs meet the ground, the subtle build-up of pigment. This shadow gives the chair a sense of weight, helping to ground the object. This piece has a quality that reminds me of the work of Josef Albers, who looked at color as its own language. It shows a sustained interest in the rendering of a common object and is successful in its aim. This is an everyday item, transformed through observation.