Untitled 

Editor: This is an untitled drawing by Edward Penfield, made using coloured pencil. It seems to capture a bustling night market scene. The figures and animals are sketched with such immediacy. What first strikes you about this piece? Curator: Immediately, I see the echoes of a very particular time. The genre painting style, combined with that cityscape scene. Genre paintings freeze daily existence but they also speak to universal themes. Notice the light – do you feel the cold of the night or the warmth of the vendors and animals around these stalls, selling things out of baskets, near horse-drawn carts? Editor: I feel a certain grittiness, a contrast to idealized depictions of city life. There’s a working-class energy here, right? Curator: Exactly. Consider the prevalence of the horse-drawn carriage at the time, replaced now by cars, and what it meant for the contemporary viewer. This intersection of nature and city life had symbolic and psychological meaning in its day and even today can speak to changing conditions of life. What story do you imagine these people will later share with their loved ones about their day, or will remember in old age about their youth? Editor: I guess it's easy to forget how deeply ingrained animal power once was in the urban experience. Curator: Precisely. And Penfield has immortalized that specific moment, connecting us to a past reality through enduring visual symbols. It makes you consider progress, loss, and the human condition all in one drawing. Editor: That's fascinating. I hadn’t considered it that way, but now I see how many layers there are to something seemingly so simple. Curator: Indeed. It’s not merely a snapshot, it’s a portal to a past worldview and what their lived reality felt like.