Weather Vane Finial c. 1938

Curator: What a stately drawing of a rooster. Editor: It strikes me as surprisingly solemn for a weathervane; is this pre- or post-rooster-dinner? Curator: That’s an intriguing question! This is a pencil drawing titled "Weather Vane Finial," created around 1938 by Philip Johnson. Editor: Johnson? Not the architect Philip Johnson? I wouldn’t immediately associate him with such a representational study. There’s an unexpected humility here. You see all of the details of the work itself represented through these simple pencils. Curator: That's it exactly. Think about the act of drawing, especially in relation to Johnson’s architectural practice. He would use this technique as a part of his studies as a foundation. It serves the very specific function of translating three-dimensional space into a two-dimensional form to analyze shape, structure, and material relationships. Editor: Right, the utility! The work must involve a social commentary with how architecture and architectural drafting shapes modern cities and life! But even detached from function, it really draws my attention to the labor that went into the actual crafting of weather vanes and other such ornamentation at the time. To consider their materials... were most actually made of metal in 1938? What metals would those even be at the time. Curator: Absolutely, thinking about the industry is important to seeing art's true social form. There is the social value of the artwork here as it enters into galleries like this that create its perception by larger audiences. It helps to see that labor and craft and material were just one part of what is involved in something gaining not just cultural awareness but symbolic awareness. Editor: I guess that turns me on the art's relationship to institutions of value and that broader perception like you said. Curator: Exactly. Something to be learned to seeing value in everything that composes these art's form and presence in modern life. Editor: Absolutely! And it makes me think differently about the legacy of figures like Johnson in how they're formed over decades and their materials shift from work like these to buildings in New York city.