Baseball Player Coin Bank c. 1938

Curator: William O. Fletcher created this watercolor and pencil drawing circa 1938. The work, titled "Baseball Player Coin Bank", presents both a front and back view of, as the title suggests, a coin bank shaped like a baseball player. What’s your initial impression? Editor: There’s a curious vulnerability to this image. Despite its potentially commercial subject matter, it's presented with an almost melancholic realism. It’s an image of a representation, divorced from the real, a copy of an object. I also find myself focusing on the back view with its money slot as much as the presentation of a young boy. Curator: Absolutely, thinking about how these banks were marketed is crucial. Who were they for, what idea did the makers and owners have in their heads? Baseball held then, and often still does, powerful social significance. It acts as a conduit of ideals around community and what it means to be a “good” citizen and worker. Even this drawing romanticizes the idea, setting up gendered relations. How do the historical constructions around sports affect our perceptions? Editor: I agree that situating it in that social landscape enriches the experience of viewing this piece. These mass produced coin banks often represented popular figures, reinforcing and perpetuating very specific, and frequently gendered, cultural values of success. What I appreciate about this drawing, though, is the almost deflated feeling it creates in depicting one of these very constructed objects, like a photograph of an advert, a copy removed from it's intention. It draws out the loneliness in capitalist aspiration. Curator: The somewhat muted tones used for his skin and the uniform only strengthen the sensation. Fletcher captured more than just the design of the object itself; there is the depiction of material decay, of fading color on cheap paint and metal, of loss that becomes so pronounced from his very posture, all while holding a weapon of this capitalist game. The artist encourages the viewer to understand not only baseball but masculinity through both the lens of labor, leisure, and the objectification of sport. Editor: I agree that the textures enhance this sentiment so acutely. The light in the colors brings out this inherent failure or lack. Thinking about this work as a critique on these American constructs deepens my interest in the object. Curator: I’m going to look at sports ephemera from the period through a completely new lens. Editor: Exactly. By investigating this banal baseball coin bank we might find a broader canvas on which our past, as well as contemporary conditions and constructions are written.