Theatre Box, 1892 c. 1947

Perkins Harnly made this watercolor, 'Theatre Box', sometime around 1892, even though he was born in 1901, so he was feeling things out! It’s a world of delicate lines and a muted, almost ghostly palette, like a memory fading into paper. The surface is alive with detail; each curl and flourish of the gilded ornamentation is rendered with care. But it’s not just about precision. Look closely, and you’ll see little wobbles in the lines, tiny imperfections that reveal the artist’s hand at work. The way the paint pools and settles in certain areas creates a subtle sense of depth and texture, like the worn velvet of an old theatre seat. I think of someone like Florine Stettheimer. Like Stettheimer, Harnly is offering an alternative, intimate vision, celebrating the handmade, with all its quirks and vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the beauty of this piece lies in its refusal to be perfect, embracing the poetry of process and the open-endedness of interpretation.