Night Transport 1939 - 1940

Curator: This painting, held in the Tate Collections, is called "Night Transport" by Roland Vivian Pitchforth. Editor: It strikes me as a landscape of industrial activity viewed through a lens of precarity. The shadows are so heavy. Curator: Indeed. Pitchforth, born in 1895, lived through immense shifts in the cultural status of labor and machinery. I see this painting as a record of those shifts. Editor: The gendered implications of the shadows feel pronounced, the implication of labor performed in obscured conditions. The "POOL" emblazoned on the fuel truck suggests a network of shared risk, though the benefits are not necessarily shared equally. Curator: Well, the government's "pool" petrol scheme, was about the rationing of resources, ensuring accessibility during wartime. Editor: Rationing always implies a socio-economic hierarchy, a stratification of who has access. Even that little rabbit running across the road seems to understand the stakes. Curator: An intriguing read. The painting certainly invites many levels of interpretation. Editor: Absolutely. It is an invitation to consider labor, and the undercurrents of our shared societal burdens.