Octagonal Table c. 1941

Peter Ustinov made this drawing of an Octagonal Table sometime in his life using what appears to be shades of brown and white. I wonder, was he thinking about the table, or the space *around* the table, as he made it? The grain of the wood is so subtle and even in tone, you’d think it was a meditation! You can feel Ustinov’s hand as he painstakingly renders the light as it falls across the object. Look at the repetition of forms: octagons turning into squares. He’s pushing and pulling space, flattening and defining the shapes, all at once. Painters like Giorgio Morandi also investigated simple, repeated shapes, and there is something of the same spirit here. The act of painting, like the act of building, is an ongoing process of inquiry, and there are no wrong turns, just constant conversations between makers across time.