Two Handled Beaker c. 1939

Lawrence Flynn made this drawing of a 'Two Handled Beaker' sometime in the twentieth century. It’s a beautiful, elegant form. You can see how Flynn used the paper’s surface as a quiet, off-white ground, and then he sketched the beaker with great precision, like an architect or a silversmith might. I wonder what it was like for Flynn to create this work. Did he have the object in front of him, and meticulously copy it? The elegant script suggests his deep intention, echoing that of the original maker of the beaker itself, and the person who gifted it. The symmetry is striking, broken only by the handwritten text and signature, and it makes me think of other artists who use line to describe form like Agnes Martin, for example. Looking at this drawing, I feel part of a long conversation between artists, each responding to the objects and forms around them, and each making their mark.