Silver Teapot c. 1937

Herman Bader made this silver teapot using pencil and watercolor wash. I can imagine him sitting, perhaps in a chair at his desk, scrutinizing every detail of the teapot. The body of the object is expressed in subtle greys and whites, and the shadows softly imply its curvaceous form. The artist meticulously renders the details of the spout, handle, and lid. You can see the influence of technical drawing and an interest in capturing the object's intricate design and surface texture. I'm thinking about artists like Morandi, who looked at a vase over and over, and kept finding new things to explore in tone and form. There's a looseness to the rendering of the surface underneath the teapot. This part seems less important to the artist, maybe a bit rushed, but it doesn't distract from the image. This tension between precision and spontaneity is present in so much art. The old and the new feed into each other.