Settee 1941

Rolland Livingstone made this drawing of a Settee, a long seat with a back and arms, at an unknown date. The colours are warm, verging on autumnal, and the drawing is precise, but with a kind of loving looseness. It's the surface that gets me going here, the way Livingstone works with tone to describe a plush and tactile object. The velvety brown of the seat seems to absorb light. There's a richness in the detail of the legs, too, that curve like they're about to spring. My eye keeps going to those legs, and how they support the weight of the seat. You could almost sit on this drawing. I think of the drawings of furniture made by Claes Oldenburg, but where Oldenburg inflates, Livingstone invites us to settle in. Making art can be like an embrace, a way of inviting the world into a conversation. There is something generous about this image.