Watch Key c. 1938

Robert Clark made this painting, Watch Key, with watercolor and graphite on paper. I'm thinking about Clark, alone in his studio, rendering these two gold watch keys. The gold color shimmers on the paper. How do you make gold with graphite and watercolor? It's kind of amazing. I'm struck by the precision of the rendering, and how that precision gives way to feeling. Each key is topped with a tiny sculpture of a man. They seem to have been plucked from another time. Each stands atop a column, as if on a stage. Their arms are outstretched, almost beseeching. Were they put there as decoration, or do they have a use? Painters are always looking at each other’s work, it’s one way of working out what they want to do, like an ongoing game of telephone through time and space. I wonder if Clark saw other painters of objects, and how this influenced his own work. It feels like a conversation across generations.