Gerald Murphy (American, 1888–1964)
Watch, 1925
Oil on canvas
78 1/2 x 78 7/8 in. (199.39 x 200.36 cm)
Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the artist, 1963.75.FA
Art © Estate of Honoria Murphy Donnelly/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

In March of 1925, Murphy exhibited Watch at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. His largest surviving canvas, Watch may be viewed as a synthetic cubist interpretation of a watchmaker’s trade sign. In a letter, Murphy wrote that he was “always struck by the mystery and depth of the interiors of a watch—its multiplicity, variety, and feeling of movement, and man’s grasp at perpetuity.” Beginning with a carefully limned drawing on graph paper, Murphy exploded and pieced together two specific timepieces: a railroad watch, designed for the Mark Cross Company (run by Murphy’s father, and eventually by Murphy himself), and a gold pocket watch, which his daughter Honoria recalled was often left propped open to reveal its inner workings.

Murphy’s composition retains the outline of a pocket watch; however, the artist has fractured, rotated, and overlapped its individual components. Even the palette contributes to the resulting visual tension, as vibrant shades of orange and yellow share boundaries with a range of cooler blues and grays. Compressing simultaneous glimpses of face, back, springs, and gears, Watch examines the dichotomy between the resolute predictability of time and the fragility of the mechanism for measuring it.