Wedding Dress 1935 - 1942

This is Mary Fitzgerald’s ‘Wedding Dress’, made with, I think, watercolor on paper. What strikes me first is how Fitzgerald's delicate strokes create a sense of volume and depth, almost like she’s sculpting with light. There’s a certain luminescence to the gown. The texture she coaxes out of the paper almost feels like silk. Look closely, and you can see the faint lines that suggest the fabric’s folds and the way it would drape on a body. She seems really interested in how light plays across the surface. I wonder, was she planning this dress for herself? Or maybe it was a study of form and light, where the subject is secondary to the act of seeing. It reminds me of Agnes Martin, in how she approaches the grid as an emotional vehicle. There’s an intimacy to it, a quiet observation of a moment, a memory, or maybe a dream. Ultimately, the wedding dress remains an open question, an invitation to reflect on our own experiences and associations.