Shaker Secretary c. 1938

Alfred H. Smith made this drawing of a Shaker Secretary. He’s taken a real object and translated it into a rendering with pencil and watercolour. It’s such a technical exercise, where Smith applies the paint in careful, even strokes. Look at how the veneer of the wood is depicted through these incredibly neat, horizontal lines. It’s not necessarily about what it *feels* like to touch this object, but more about the idea of the object. There is a sense of depth, but not a huge amount. I’m interested in the way the whole piece feels so controlled, measured, and precise – like this piece could have been made using a machine. Maybe that’s why this strikes me as somehow akin to the photorealist painters. The point is that this feels like a depiction of something pre-existing, something outside of the artist themselves.