Cape c. 1938

Melita Hofmann made this artwork, Cape, with pen, ink, and watercolor on paper. The piece, with its repeating trefoil design, really dives into the territory between surface design and the spirit of pattern making. You can see the artist's hand at work here, carefully building up these fields of shapes, each one slightly different, not quite perfect. In doing so, the hand-painted effect gives warmth to the artwork. The cape is trimmed in umber and the trefoil designs are brown too. It makes me think about how each mark reflects Hofmann's concentration, her focus as she balances precision with freedom. What was she thinking as she made it? Perhaps she was considering the conversations between textile and painting. This painting doesn’t just depict a cape; it embodies a whole history of design, craft, and aesthetic inquiry.