Untitled (portrait of little girl in dress with flower motif and bonnet) c. 1940

Paul Gittings captured this photograph of a young girl in a dress with a flower motif and bonnet, the date unknown. I wonder what it was like for Gittings to work with the monochrome palette, a stark choice. It’s like he was asking, what can be created with minimal information? The girl sits and stares directly ahead; the composition is simple yet so strangely effective. Her dress and bonnet give a feeling of the old times; she could be a character from a Henry James novel. As a painter, I feel such kinship with other artists. It’s like we are all in the same boat, each trying to solve the same riddle of how to capture something about being human. I wonder what the girl was thinking as she sat for her portrait? It would be fun to add splashes of colour, maybe make the photograph a painting. The possibilities are endless.