Studie af skammel 1930 - 1938

Niels Larsen Stevns made this pencil study of a stool on a lined page from a sketchbook. It's so great to see the nuts and bolts of artmaking like this, the back and forth, a little like a dance! Looking at the drawing, I love the way he uses line, the sketchy quality, almost like he's feeling his way around the object. The lines aren’t precious; there’s a real sense of the hand moving, correcting, exploring. See how he doubles up the lines in places? That’s where he was trying to get the curve just right. It’s not about perfection; it’s about the search. And the stool itself, rendered in such a simple way, it’s almost archetypal, a stoolness. There’s something really satisfying in seeing how an artist breaks down a form to its most essential elements. It reminds me a little of Morandi, in the way he'd keep returning to these simple, everyday objects, like he’s trying to understand the world through them. It's all about conversation, isn't it?