Conestoga Wagon Jacks c. 1941

Nicholas Amantea made this painting of Conestoga Wagon Jacks, but we don’t know when or with what. It’s a rendering of a kind of tool: wood and metal, brown and grey. You get the sense of a plain, simple object, like a relic, but one that once had a really important function. I imagine the artist looking at it for a long time. The color is gentle, almost watercolor-like, but there’s also a hardness there – a stillness. You know, it kind of reminds me of the work of Giorgio Morandi, who spent his life painting bottles. There’s something about taking an ordinary object and turning it into something monumental. It’s like Amantea is saying, “Look at this, it’s important. Someone made this, someone used this.” It shows how art can find beauty and meaning in the everyday.