Untitled (two rows of women in matching dresses and hats, with flowers, outside) c. 1945

This untitled image by Paul Gittings presents a group of women in matching outfits, captured in a moment of formal unity. The inverted tones of the photograph offer a strange dance between light and dark that changes how we read depth and texture. I’m thinking about that sea of matching dresses and hats and how uniformity speaks to something deeper. Each figure is edged in bright white, highlighting a gesture of holding flowers. Look at the way the light catches the floral arrangement in the center, almost ghost like. The individual blooms and stems are rendered with a similar level of detail as their faces. The light in the image can be thought of like the movement in an Agnes Martin painting; a consistent gesture, that builds an overall affect and tone. This piece reminds me of the work of Lisette Model, who also worked with found photography and inversion to explore ideas of form and repetition. In the end we are left to wonder about the stories and the significance of the flowers to this group of women.