Settee-Sofa c. 1937

Edna C. Rex painted this watercolour of a settee-sofa, and you can see the fine detail picked out by the brush in delicate touches and a muted palette. Imagine Rex, sitting before this object, trying to capture every little fold and button, every curve of the wooden frame! There’s a real patience and a deep looking here. I love the way the tufted upholstery looks so soft you could sink into it. The thin washes create this lovely, almost ghostly light that gives the piece a dreamlike quality. I find myself thinking of Fairfield Porter, another painter who turned the mundane aspects of daily life into artworks. Painters like Rex were in conversation with each other across time and space, exploring new ways of seeing and representing the world around them. She’s showing us that even the most ordinary objects can become something extraordinary through the simple act of looking and painting.