Toast Rack c. 1939

Albert Taxson made this drawing of a toast rack, and it's rendered with such precision. You can almost feel the weight of the object, the coolness of the metal. I can imagine Albert, bending over the page, carefully building up the tones with each stroke of the pencil. Maybe he was interested in the play of light across the surfaces, or the way the simple form of a toast rack could be elevated through careful observation. The two arches seem to echo one another, and the swirls almost seem to have a life of their own. The level of detail is incredible. It reminds me of the work of other artists who find beauty in the everyday, like Morandi with his bottles, or the early Pop artists with their fascination with consumer goods. Artists are always in dialogue with one another, riffing on each other's ideas across time. There's a humility in celebrating ordinary objects in drawings like these. It’s as if to say, "Look, there’s beauty everywhere, even in the things we use every day."