Pioneer Bath Tub 1935 - 1942

This little watercolor shows a pioneer bathtub, made anonymously with subtle washes and delicate line work. The artist has really captured the handmade quality of the tub; you can see the marks and imperfections of the material, like scars on its surface. I wonder, what was the artist thinking about when they made this image? The bath tub itself, its function? Did they consider their own body? The work has a strange intimacy; it’s not about the grand gesture, but about the potential of something to hold and contain. The browns and grays are layered in such a way as to imply both the solid form of the object and its inevitable return to nature. Like a still life by Morandi, perhaps? It reminds us that artists are in constant dialogue, borrowing, responding, and reinterpreting ideas across time. Painting, like a pioneer bathtub, contains this constant process of exchange, always embracing ambiguity.