Chair, Pine with Rush Seat c. 1939

Frank M. Keane made this painting of a chair, pine with rush seat, sometime before 1941. The painting gives us such a clear, straightforward, and sturdy image! I wonder about Keane and the day he painted this. Did he sit in a chair just like this? How many chairs had he sat on in his lifetime? Painting a chair seems so matter-of-fact, yet it’s also philosophical. It asks us to consider this everyday object – its presence and purpose. The woven texture of the seat looks so different from the smooth, vertical posts. It reminds me of the many different ways an artist can play with line and form, contrasting soft with hard, regular with irregular. And how many artists since then have painted chairs? Van Gogh comes to mind... This plain chair, so simply rendered, feels like a meditation on what it means to see and to record. I think of the artist and the chair in a silent, still conversation.