Nursing Bottle 1935 - 1942

Editor: This is "Nursing Bottle" by Samuel O. Klein, made between 1935 and 1942 using watercolor and drawing techniques. It looks so… utilitarian. I’m curious, what strikes you when you look at this work? Curator: Well, beyond its obvious subject matter, it is striking how a seemingly mundane object gets elevated through the labor of representation. The work asks us to consider the societal conditions that rendered this specific type of feeding so visible. Were ready-made bottles a common sight, accessible to everyone, or was their consumption limited by social factors? Editor: That’s interesting. I was just seeing it as a basic still life. You are looking at it as a manufactured object? Curator: Precisely! The use of watercolor and drawing, processes associated with careful, manual application, invites us to reflect on the implied industrial process responsible for mass producing such bottles and the labour practices involved. Were these bottles even reusable or disposable? Editor: I didn’t even think about that. Looking closer, I notice that level of detail applied to render what might be a mass-produced item... Curator: Yes! Does this realism attempt to validate or, perhaps, fetishize the manufacturing process during that period? And to what extent can art reshape our understanding of commodity culture by immortalizing daily use artifacts such as the bottle displayed here? Editor: I never considered how everyday objects and production can intersect so profoundly within a piece of art! Thanks, that’s a really interesting lens through which to look at art. Curator: Absolutely, and now we can’t unsee the labour and the material history embedded in such artworks!