Chair 1937

John Sullivan made this drawing of a chair with colored pencil, at an unknown date. It’s funny to look at a drawing of a chair; you can’t sit on it, so it’s useless, yet strangely captivating. You can imagine the artist thinking about utility and beauty simultaneously. Sullivan probably looked long and hard at this simple wooden chair. I wonder, was it in his house? I see its solid construction; the woven seat with its checkered pattern of muted greens, purples and browns, giving it a certain warmth, and I wonder what it would be like to sit there. I can imagine John Sullivan, squinting his eyes, trying to get the angle of the legs just right and capture the essence of "chair-ness," something between geometric form and domestic comfort. What I like most about this piece is that it freezes a moment in time, asking us to consider something we usually take for granted and celebrating the beauty of everyday objects.