Powder Horn c. 1937

Grace Halpin, who lived a long life, made this painting of a Powder Horn on paper sometime within her lifetime. Look at the way she models the form of the container, how the tone shifts so gently in the roundest part. There’s something very tender about how she builds the shadows. The surface of the object has a burnished quality, as the light catches its curves. It’s quite muted – browns and golds and creams – but I find myself drawn to the level of detail with which Halpin has rendered the object and its embossed motif. It reminds me of the work of the early American still life painter, Raphaelle Peale. Like Peale, Halpin has taken an everyday object and transformed it into something monumental through careful observation. It makes you wonder about the stories that the object holds within it.