Puppet: "Punch" c. 1937

Edward Strzalkowski made this watercolor painting of a puppet named Punch. You can see the puppet's costume is rendered with soft browns and reds. It’s a controlled palette, a little like Giorgio Morandi, who would use a restricted range of tones, to suggest a specific mood, or atmosphere. I wonder about the artist, Strzalkowski, what his relationship to this puppet was? Did he, as a child, put on puppet shows for his family? Or was this puppet part of a larger theatrical production? There's something really beautiful about how carefully Strzalkowski has painted this puppet. The details are so delicate! He has lovingly depicted all the details from the pleats of Punch's trousers, to the stitching on his brown leather shoes. You get a sense of the artist taking his time, carefully observing. Painters are always learning from each other, across different places, and different eras. Every painting is a conversation, an ongoing experiment, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, rather than just a fixed message.