Untitled (Plaid skirt and legs on wood table) c. 1940s

This photograph, of a plaid skirt and legs on a wood table, was made by an anonymous artist, using gelatin silver print. There’s a kind of awkwardness to the framing, cutting off the figure at the torso. What you see instead is a kind of geometry; a skirt with a rigorous plaid pattern, and then the smooth, cylindrical forms of the legs, leading down to thick socks and shoes. The backdrop is a simple landscape, grounding the figure in an everyday reality. There’s something kind of comical, and even endearing, in the very plainness of the subject. It reminds me of some of the photographs by artists like Peter Hujar, who also had a knack for finding beauty and meaning in the mundane. Ultimately it embraces art's potential to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary, inviting viewers to find interest and wonder in the unexpected.