Cast Iron Heater Stove c. 1940

Dolores Haupt made this drawing of a cast iron heater stove, we don’t know exactly when, but it shimmers with the kind of dedicated attention only a close looking can bring. The drawing is all line and tone, a very limited palette and yet it makes me think about the process of translation. Haupt’s stove is dense with ornamental detail, all translated into tiny lines that seem to vibrate on the surface of the paper. The object itself is raised up on these sturdy, stylized animal feet, suggesting some mythical beast. The circle that dominates the upper half of the stove is actually a dense collection of individual marks, like a million tiny suns all arranged in a perfect cosmos. It makes me think about someone like Agnes Martin, whose drawings of grids and lines operate in a similar way, creating a universe of tiny, repeated marks. Both artists take something we think we know, a stove or a grid, and turn it into something otherworldly.