Winding Wheel c. 1937

Florence Truelson made this watercolor of a Winding Wheel, we don't know when. The palette is muted, earthy, almost monochromatic, which gives the object a sense of weight, of gravity. I love the way Truelson captures the play of light and shadow on the wooden surface. It feels like she's not just depicting an object, but also the atmosphere around it. The way she renders the legs of the wheel, how they splay out with a kind of quirky asymmetry, reminds me of Philip Guston's late paintings. There's something so honest and unpretentious about the way she approaches her subject, like she's just trying to capture what she sees without any fancy artifice. And that's what makes it so compelling. It's a humble object, rendered with care and attention, and in that act of close observation, it becomes something more. I love the way Truelson embraces the imperfections and irregularities of the wheel, highlighting the beauty in the everyday.