Fire Station 1935 - 1942

Perkins Harnly made this watercolor painting of a Fire Station, and it’s like he was building a world with careful lines and washes. Imagine him there, tweaking the perspective, lost in the details of the brickwork, the polished metal, and the red fire engine. Maybe he was thinking about the everyday heroism of firemen, the anticipation and readiness, the domesticity of the scene versus the urgency of their calling. It’s all meticulously rendered, each line considered, but the way the light catches those metal surfaces, for example, feels almost dreamlike, doesn’t it? Harnly’s not trying to trick the eye, but he’s inviting us into a space that feels both real and imagined. Painters have always been inspired by the world around them, and by each other, remixing what they see and feel into something new.