Dress c. 1937

This is Melita Hofmann’s watercolour ‘Dress’, made sometime in the mid-20th century. There is something so delicate about this piece, the way the colour has been applied in thin washes, the paper left bare in places. It feels light, like a memory, or a ghost. Look how the lines of the dress almost dissolve into the paper. Hofmann is playing with transparency, using the whiteness of the ground to create a sense of volume and depth. It’s like she’s trying to capture the essence of the dress, rather than just its physical form. See that smaller dress hovering in the background? It’s fainter still, as if about to disappear entirely. This reminds me of Agnes Martin, who was also interested in capturing the ephemeral qualities of light and space. Like Martin, Hofmann invites us to slow down, to really see the world around us, and to appreciate the beauty of simple, everyday objects.