Police Rattle c. 1936

This is Samuel Fineman's rendering of a Police Rattle, made in 1967 with graphite and watercolor on paper. Fineman wasn't trying to create an object here, but rather record it. This gives the artwork its particular power. The rattle itself would have been a crucial element of policing, a means of urgently summoning assistance. It’s made of simple wood, shaped for a handle, with a clapper spinning on a central pin. The sound it makes is shrill, and unmistakably insistent. You can imagine the hand of the officer holding it, and the urgency in the gesture of spinning the clapper. Fineman’s drawing brings all this to the fore. By depicting the rattle with such care, he asks us to consider the social context that gives the object its meaning. Ultimately, it's a tool of social order, of governance and control. The drawing makes you think not just about the thing itself, but how it figured in the world.