Tray c. 1940

This tray was made by Charles Roadman; I love the way he's used such a limited palette of colors to describe the birds and fruit. You can feel the process in the making of this tray. Roadman is making a statement about the value of simple pleasures. Look at how the deep black background makes the colors pop, giving the fruit and birds a jewel-like quality. The border is a riot of tiny flowers, each one carefully painted. The way he renders the grapes is so interesting—little dots of color that somehow, from a distance, coalesce into three-dimensional forms. It reminds me of some of Milton Avery’s paintings, where forms are simplified into shapes and color becomes the main event. Art is about embracing ambiguity, about seeing the world in new ways.