Child's Rocking Chair 1935 - 1942

Curator: At first glance, the drawing’s humble nature makes a charming impression. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at a work by Alfred H. Smith, entitled "Child's Rocking Chair." It was made sometime between 1935 and 1942 and is rendered with watercolor and pencil. The artist seems less concerned with replicating appearances than meticulously noting down details about material and production. Curator: The rocking horse archetype is practically primal. But to see it stripped down like this, in a nearly diagrammatic fashion, makes me wonder what associations a viewer at the time might have had. Wooden toys signal homespun values perhaps, or an emphasis on locally sourced materials. Editor: Good point. The rocking horse motif goes way back. Horses are almost universally associated with nobility, energy, virility. But within a child's sphere, it’s tamed, brought down to a manageable scale. Curator: Yes, and even controlled—the limited textures, as recorded through pencil, suggest a degree of constraint on materials. The piece doesn’t seem celebratory of artisanal prowess so much as a careful cataloging. A world on a string. Editor: Well, childhood, even represented so plainly here, involves projection, fantasy. This could be seen as an early version of self-determination. One is given the world, or its symbolic rendering, and begins the long process of shaping and forming it in one’s own mind. The somewhat severe depiction doesn’t preclude the intense emotional relationship a child has to their world and toys. Curator: Perhaps that limitation serves a kind of generative function here. After all, constraint inspires innovation. Alfred H. Smith captures an era defined by both limits and creative resourcefulness. Editor: An apt conclusion; this deceptively simple drawing provides a complex range of cultural insights, from industry to domestic life.