Silver Porringer c. 1936

Horace Reina made this drawing of a silver porringer on paper, and it looks like he was really thinking through the idea of form. I love the way the light seems to just live on the surface of the metal, as if the pencil is picking up on every nuance of the object. Look at how the soft gradations build up the roundness of the bowl. You can almost feel the cool, smooth metal just by looking at the shading. It’s like Reina is not just drawing what he sees, but really feeling the object through the pencil. The details are so carefully considered. The decorative handle, for instance, is rendered with such precision. It makes you wonder if he was a metalworker himself, intimately familiar with the craft. I'm reminded of some of the precisionist painters, like Charles Sheeler, and how they saw beauty in industrial forms. This drawing feels like that, but with a touch of old-world charm. It’s as if Reina is celebrating the simple elegance of this everyday object.