Dress 1935 - 1942

This dress was drawn, at an unknown date, by Mary E. Humes, and it's a humble work on paper. A simple, unpretentious drawing of a ruffled dress, done with what looks like graphite. There's something so open and immediate about the marks in this image. The varying pressure of the pencil creates the tonal values we see, the light and shadow, the fall of the fabric. It is very fluid, you can see how the artist, Mary E. Humes, has allowed her vision to evolve across the page. The marks and erasures are clearly visible. Take a look at the bottom of the dress, where the fabric pools on the floor. This area is defined by confident dark marks, but it is also surrounded by sketchier, lighter marks, suggestive of adjustment. Humes wasn't afraid to let her process show, and this gives the image an appealingly fragile quality, which reminds me a little of the drawings of Cy Twombly. It's like a whisper of a dress, a vision on paper.