Corner Windsor Chair c. 1939

Editor: So this is Ernest A. Towers, Jr.’s "Corner Windsor Chair" from around 1939, rendered in pencil, charcoal and watercolor. There's something very direct and unassuming about this portrayal. What stands out to you? Curator: It is deceptively simple. A chair, yes, but a very specific one. The Windsor, rooted in a vernacular tradition, speaks volumes. Its design, born from practicality, gradually accrued symbolic weight as an object of colonial American identity and later, a nostalgic connection to pre-industrial craftsmanship. Think about the symbolism of home, hearth, comfort. What do you associate with this kind of chair? Editor: I think about New England, honestly. And maybe my grandmother’s house? But it’s interesting that something so plain can be so loaded. Curator: Precisely. The artist chooses not to depict a grand landscape or a portrait of power, but a chair. It implies a seated figure – absent, but present in our minds. Chairs carry an emotional resonance of those who occupied them, creating cultural memory. Have you ever thought about how furniture gains meaning over time? Editor: Not really. I guess I’ve always thought of still lifes as being about fruit or flowers, not...furniture. Curator: Consider the medium, too – watercolor and pencil, techniques often associated with sketching and documentation. This makes me consider if it was simply an exercise, or does this rendering speak to preserving a disappearing craft, a longing for a simpler time perhaps intensified by the impending World War? How does its form—solid and dependable—contrast with the delicate techniques of drawing and watercolor? Editor: That’s fascinating. I’m seeing so much more complexity in it now. I just thought it was…a nice drawing of a chair. Curator: Art often resides in these seemingly simple moments, in the everyday objects we imbue with memory and cultural significance.