Knife and Sheath c. 1941

Albert Rudin made this watercolor on paper of a knife and its sheath sometime during his life, up to 1943. I like to imagine Rudin finding these objects - the handle looks like it’s made of bone, the leather is worn, and the blade is stained with rust – and thinking, “I’m going to paint these.” It feels like he’s thinking about the history of these objects, what they might have been used for. The way he’s rendered them is so direct, so factual, that I can imagine him wanting to preserve their memory in a way that feels very human. It reminds me of folk art, where everyday objects become icons through the act of painting. The color palette he chose is pretty subdued, mostly earth tones with a little bit of steel grey on the blade. It gives the whole thing a muted, melancholy feeling, like he’s thinking about the passage of time, or the end of something. I wonder what he was thinking about when he painted it.