Wooden Cash Register c. 1942

This is Wilbur M Rice’s ‘Wooden Cash Register’, a watercolor painting. Look at the way he’s built up those woody browns. The painting feels like a gradual layering, almost like the way a tree adds rings over time. You can see the process. The artist isn’t trying to hide the brushstrokes or the way the pigment sits on the paper. Notice the way the light gently catches the edges, almost as if to highlight the object's existence. This way of working reminds me of Giorgio Morandi's still life paintings. There’s something so tender about the way Rice has observed this cash register. It makes you wonder what was going through his mind as he worked, and what this piece meant to him. The painting invites us into a conversation that is not about answers, but questions.