Baby's High Chair c. 1936

Curator: This work, titled "Baby's High Chair," comes to us from around 1936 and is rendered in watercolor and pencil. Editor: My initial thought? Utter stillness. It’s like the world’s holding its breath, waiting for a baby that never quite arrives, maybe. Curator: It’s a striking image. It feels somehow both intimate and detached. These depictions of domestic scenes gained considerable attention during this time as everyday life was becoming radically industrialized. Artists took notice and started finding profundity in familiar settings. Editor: Yes! And the composition contributes so much to that detached feeling. The high chair is so precisely centered. It’s isolated in this field of… well, nothing. Is that on purpose, do you think? It's as if this humble object stands in for so much more. Curator: Possibly. While information about Edith Magnette's intentions for creating this image remains limited, her selection of an empty high chair is deeply meaningful. There’s something inherently hopeful but also wistful in this image. There are strong emotions connected to this time, since America still felt economic devastation, leading up to another major world war. The hope for a better future might just be encapsulated in this rendering of potential new life. Editor: I find myself drawn to the textural contrasts, actually. The hard lines of the wood, then the woven seat with those almost electric-blue threads running through them. It feels... tactile. I just want to reach out and touch it. But there’s also a coldness to it. Like a memory fading at the edges, all those muted colors barely hanging on. Curator: A coldness indicative of the economic hardships of the Great Depression. Editor: Well said. What strikes you most about it, reflecting on the artist’s process and social backdrop of its creation? Curator: Thinking of Magnette's choice to focus on such an ordinary object within a period of extraordinary turmoil and technological shifts... it’s as if the simplicity holds a kind of strength, a refusal to be swept away. Editor: A perfect little monument to… what was and what could be. I'm sure every viewer will take away something uniquely their own. It's beautiful, really.