Lamp c. 1936

This is a delicate Lamp made by Burton Ewing at some point during his long life. It’s rendered in muted greys and golds. I imagine Ewing meticulously building this lamp, line by line. I wonder if Ewing was thinking about the interplay of light and shadow when he chose these gradations of grey. See how he makes the metallic surface almost glow? The thin lines are precise, yet there's a softness that suggests the artist wasn't aiming for cold perfection. The lamp itself feels like a memory of a functional object rather than the thing itself. And those two golden rods shooting up from the top—they’re like minimalist sculptures, daring to break free from the confines of the base. Ewing shares something with Giorgio Morandi in his quiet meditations on the forms of everyday objects. There's a shared reverence for simplicity, a deep understanding that beauty resides in the mundane. This drawing reminds us that even the simplest of objects, when seen through the eyes of an artist, can illuminate the world in unexpected ways.