Untitled (French Restaurant) c. 1930

Susan Willard Flint made this drawing of a French Restaurant, we don't know exactly when, using what looks like graphite on paper. I love the way she’s squeezed all these characters into the composition. They’re so interesting, with their outfits and expressions. I wonder, was Flint thinking about Toulouse Lautrec and the other artists who depicted the Parisian demimonde? I imagine her sketching furiously in her notebook in a crowded restaurant or cabaret. She probably just absorbed the visual and emotional dynamics around her. What would it have been like to be in that moment of creation, just watching and observing the world? You can feel that electricity in this drawing, a lively, jazzy spirit. It captures a real sense of being there. Artists like Flint, whether they know it or not, participate in this long, ongoing conversation between painters, a call and response across time. They leave us with something unresolved but full of possibility.