Lamp c. 1937

Curator: This pencil drawing, aptly titled "Lamp", comes to us from Frank Fumagalli, circa 1937. Editor: Oh, how delightfully… reserved! It evokes the feeling of a hushed library, shadows lengthening across polished mahogany. There’s something so proper and contained about its geometric, layered design. Curator: Indeed. Note how Fumagalli employs subtle gradations of tone, achieving a remarkable sense of depth and form with only a simple pencil. The base is solid, providing ballast, visually, for the elongated body, rising to a point, nearly piercing the implied plane of the page. Editor: That almost severe upward thrust. It’s reaching for something, isn’t it? I feel a flicker of restrained passion trying to break through the geometry. It’s a beacon waiting to be lit. Is it waiting for the right bulb or is it designed not to light. Curator: The interplay of line and form is critical here. Consider the way he’s suggested the contours, not merely drawing a boundary, but actually shading. We gain a tacit knowledge about the roundness, the material even. This is not simply a sketch; it’s an exercise in careful observation. Editor: And such deliberate observation often yields surprises! I see a delicate melancholy in this drawing now, as if this perfect geometric structure is guarding a secret sadness. What I see more profoundly is the potential, or lack of. I think that if I saw one that wasn’t a drawing I would likely purchase it. Curator: Yes, perhaps the implied function of the object itself invites those projections. The question is always, where does observation end and interpretation begin? Are you imbuing what is, after all, just graphite and paper with far too much metaphorical significance? Editor: Maybe. But isn’t that what good art should provoke? A collision of our internal world with the objective reality of the artwork, setting off a spark, that then starts an intellectual fire. That fire can illuminate new connections or bring shadows that we hadn’t perceived before, until, in that perfect combustion, they emerge anew. Curator: I concede. Fumagalli’s Lamp transcends its subject. It achieves its effect on a level of artistic and philosophical discourse beyond its modest intention. Editor: Nicely put. Now I see a future and one of many. Perhaps, even better!