Untitled c. 1950s

Dorothy Dehner made this untitled watercolour on paper. The palette is like a memory, all muted browns, ochres, and faded roses. It's as if the colours are whispering secrets from another time. Dehner's marks feel deliberate, a kind of playful, exploratory dance across the surface, and this feels very process driven. Look at the way she’s built up these blocky forms, one on top of the other, like a little city of shapes. There’s a real push and pull between the texture of the paper and the way the watercolour bleeds into it. See the dark drips which fall from that goblet shape? I love how they disrupt the supposed neatness of the composition. There’s an echo of someone like Arthur Dove here, in that feeling of simplifying down to essential forms. But Dehner's got her own thing going on – a kind of quirky, personal language all her own. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that art doesn't always need to shout. Sometimes, the quietest voices are the most compelling.