Doll c. 1936

This is Grace Halpin's Doll, a watercolor and graphite rendering with, like, a whole lot of cross-hatching. The way she builds up those little lines to give shape and volume, it’s almost like she’s knitting the form together, thread by careful thread. You can really tell she was trained in design. And look at that green! It's so consistent, not just on the dress but in the hat too, a kind of grassy, garden-party green. It’s not a super-expressive painting in terms of brushstrokes or like juicy splatters of color. Rather, it's about precision, control. This suggests a certain kind of mood, you know, quiet and composed, but with those little red shoes peeking out, it's not *too* serious! There's another artist I think about when I look at Halpin's work: Florine Stettheimer. Both of them have this interest in fashion, but the execution is so different. Stettheimer is camp, exuberant, all about surface. Halpin is calm, and controlled. Anyway, it's so cool how artists can take similar subjects in totally different directions.