Child Reading 1915 - 1918

Curator: This watercolor piece is titled "Child Reading" created sometime between 1915 and 1918 by Henry Lyman Saffen. What strikes you immediately about it? Editor: The bold use of watercolor! Look at that electric blue—it completely dominates the composition and seems almost divorced from reality. It's really exciting. Curator: Indeed! The fauvist influence is quite evident here. Saffen's use of pure, unmodulated color certainly places him within that movement. How do you think that style serves his subject matter? Editor: Well, the raw application of the watercolor brings attention to the physical process of painting itself. It's less about realistic depiction and more about the experience of observing and recording color. Curator: Absolutely. There’s an immediacy to it, a spontaneity. It was created during a period of intense upheaval in the world, WWI to be exact. Saffen volunteered with the American Red Cross in Europe. Considering the historical context, can we see the Fauvist expression in relation to a need for emotional expression, maybe even escapism from the harsh realities of war? Editor: It is interesting that he turns to the innocence of childhood here, but does so with such bold artifice. The painting declares itself to *be* a painting, rather than simply representing an ideal, I think, even more like declaring 'I am, because I create'. Curator: The reading child certainly resonates differently knowing he may have been painting this whilst helping soldiers nearby. In some way the action of reading is a form of processing experiences, or at least distracting from the reality that's hitting so many during the war. The production and exhibition of art always serves the interests of cultural diplomacy, in ways big and small. Editor: I see the production itself here to be like that. We consider the work done not only within, but its process: from paintbrush production, to his color pigment mixes - it's like building his own space. Curator: Fascinating to consider! I suppose the art world can often operate like that too: a micro-society of interlinked labour. Editor: Definitely, a system of making. I love that the painting speaks to all of those points at once!