Settee c. 1936

This drawing of a Settee was made by Harry Eisman. It’s all wood, straight lines, very proper. You know, it has a funny way of feeling really solid, like a dependable piece of furniture, but at the same time, it’s just an illusion conjured by the artist, a memory of this functional, solid object. It makes me think about how drawings can be so deceptive. We see something that appears so real, so present, and yet it's just lines on paper. I wonder what Eisman was thinking, what kind of relationship he had with this object when he made this work? Did he want to capture its essence? Its form? Its function? The way the lines are rendered so meticulously, it's almost like he's trying to understand the very essence of the settee, to translate its physicality into a series of marks. It’s like he wants to invite us to consider how we perceive and interact with the objects that surround us. And that’s what art can do, it can make us see the everyday in a new light, transforming the mundane into something extraordinary.