Silver Tankard 1935 - 1942

Simon Weiss made this drawing of a silver tankard sometime around 1855-1995, using graphite, and it’s a real deep dive into detail. I imagine Weiss, poised over the paper, the graphite stick alive in their hand, coaxing the form of the tankard into being. You can see the care in each line, building volume and catching the light just so. It's almost like the artist is mapping the object, understanding it through touch and sight. I wonder, did Weiss have the actual tankard in front of them? Were they thinking about who might have used it, the stories it could tell? Look how the light plays across the curved surface of the lid! And then there are these almost technical, diagrammatic drawings of the tankard and its features, included in the study. It reminds me that artists are always in conversation with each other, borrowing ideas and techniques, building on what came before. We can see these kinds of things appearing in the work of, say, Giorgio Morandi, who, like Weiss, was obsessed with the humble object. There is a real sense of the pleasure they found in looking, feeling and depicting these objects.