Cream Pitcher 1935 - 1942

Janet Riza made this Cream Pitcher with what looks like watercolor on paper. I can just picture the artist, maybe sitting at a table by a window, carefully layering those blues to capture the light playing on the glass. It’s amazing how she’s used flat pigment to give the pitcher depth, to almost feel its roundness, its weight. I think about the challenge she set for herself. How do you capture the quality of light with paint? How do you describe its texture, or its material qualities? That solid cobalt hue has real presence. I'm thinking of Morandi and his bottles, and the way he could make simple objects feel so monumental. With this blue, Riza reminds us that the most ordinary things can hold so much beauty, so much potential for art. Artists like Riza and Morandi show us how the simple act of looking can be an adventure.