Candle Holder 1935 - 1942

Curator: What strikes me first is how delicately rendered this candlestick is. It has this otherworldly, almost meditative feel. Editor: We're looking at Bernard Gussow's "Candle Holder," created sometime between 1935 and 1942. It is rendered with watercolor and coloured pencil, probably on toned paper. A seemingly humble utilitarian object elevated to the realm of fine art through careful study and skill. Curator: The way the light catches the curves...it's as if Gussow wasn't just depicting an object, but the very essence of light itself. Almost like an old memory being drawn. It makes me want to curl up with a book. Editor: It does suggest a certain simplicity, even austerity. What’s crucial here is understanding how artists like Gussow, often associated with social realism, engaged with design and craft. These sketches show an engagement with the means of domestic production. How was the candlestick crafted? What were the labour conditions? What class might have had access to such an object? Curator: Those are valid points, for sure, but there is more than labour involved. Maybe, in these simple things, he found solace, a way to focus and process the anxieties of the world around him during the Depression Era. You can see a subtle, shifting play of browns, blues, and greens in the shading. I feel this tension, but it calms me down. Editor: And thinking more broadly about production – the coloured pencils themselves, the watercolor paints, the paper: materials manufactured and distributed, made accessible perhaps through New Deal art programs… Even the act of depicting this functional item can become a subtle form of social commentary, highlighting the role of objects in our everyday lives and artistic representations. Curator: I get what you're saying, bringing this into the real world. But for me, it's the solitude this evokes. Almost like a prayer. Editor: Well, even the materials of prayer - candles, books, paper - all objects with production chains, from raw resources to the final artifact… Everything’s connected. Curator: Indeed. A humble object becomes a gateway to endless contemplation. Editor: Precisely, a web of interconnected processes and implications, ready for further scrutiny and critique.