Music Room Chair c. 1939

Virginia Kennady made this drawing of a Music Room Chair, we don't know when, using some kind of graphic medium. The drawing is made with a precise and detailed approach, capturing the form and texture of the wooden chair. It’s like Kennady is saying, “Here’s the thing itself!” and the care she took becomes the emotional content. The surface of the chair is rendered with subtle tonal variations, suggesting the play of light across the wood grain. The artist has painstakingly detailed every spindle, curve, and joint, bringing a certain, handmade quality to the otherwise industrial design. I love how she uses the hatched lines to add form to the curves in the armrests and the legs. Kennady’s drawing is not a million miles away from the work of contemporary artists like Tomma Abts, in that it shows how you can find endless possibilities within a self-imposed formal framework. Both embrace a kind of ambiguity, inviting us to contemplate the nature of representation itself.