Child's High Chair c. 1942

Donald Harding made this drawing of a child's high chair, we're not sure when, and with what looks like watercolour on paper. See how the strokes build up a sense of light falling on the wooden frame? Harding isn't trying to trick us into thinking this *is* a chair. It’s more like he’s showing us how seeing can be a process of building, layering, adjusting. I love how the texture of the wood grain is evoked with such minimal means. Look at the front right leg of the chair – the little notches of brown, suggesting carved details. It's almost a language of decoration. It reminds me a bit of Charles Burchfield, another artist who found something profound in the everyday. Both seem to embrace a kind of handmade quality, letting the viewer see the artist's thinking, mark by mark. There's no one way to look at it, and that's the point.