Iron Shutter Latch c. 1939

William Paul Childers made this beautiful study of an ‘Iron Shutter Latch’ sometime during his lifetime. It's painted with gouache on paper, and it shows a deep sensitivity to color and form! Imagine Childers, totally focused, teasing out these delicate gradations of brown, from a paler sepia to a near black. Just like his contemporary, Giorgio Morandi, who painted bottles over and over again, Childers seems to be asking himself how he can find something new in the everyday. I can almost feel the artist’s breath as he coaxes the gouache into this elegant spiral at the bottom of the latch. It’s an investigation through paint, a humble kind of looking, reminding me of the drawings of the German artist, Hilla Becher, whose typologies of industrial structures transformed our appreciation of functional objects. Childers' work reminds us that through sustained attention, even the simplest thing can become a source of endless fascination!