Lowboy 1937

Alvin Gully made this drawing of a lowboy, or small cabinet, sometime in the 20th century. It's all about the brown – a family of wood tones, from light tan to dark walnut, carefully hatched and shaded to describe the form. Looking closely, you see that Gully isn’t just copying what he sees. Instead, he is building up a sense of volume and light with these tiny, repetitive marks. The fan-like carvings on the front are particularly interesting. You can almost feel the rhythm of the craftsman's hand as he shaped the wood. Each mark is like a tiny echo of the larger form. It reminds me of the work of Charles Sheeler, another artist who found beauty in the everyday objects around him. There's a similar kind of quiet intensity in both of their work, a sense of reverence for the simple things in life. Art isn’t about showing things exactly as they are, it's about revealing the hidden poetry within them.