Water Towers 1955

Wade White made this drawing of water towers with graphite on paper. The image is rendered with clear, precise lines, and it makes me think about all those other artists who were looking closely at the urban landscape and industrial subjects. It seems like White is trying to simplify the forms into something geometrical. I wonder if he was thinking about the precisionists and their sharp focus on the architectural forms of the city. I think he might have wanted to portray an urban industrial scene with the water towers, chimneys, and smoke rising. I can just imagine him sitting somewhere maybe on a roof top somewhere, squinting his eyes, trying to capture what he was seeing. There’s a sense of a kind of quiet attention to detail. But it's also like he’s abstracted from the scene and made it into something new. It's like when you look at a thing and see something else too.