Untitled c. 1940s

Here's a small painting by Judith Rothschild, using shades of grey to conjure a world of shapes. I can almost feel Rothschild making this, layering the tones, shifting and nudging the forms into place. I imagine her, caught up in the materiality of it all, thinking hard about positive and negative space. The dance of shapes feels playful. What kind of feeling does it evoke for you? There's something so satisfying about how the dark grey shapes lock together, creating a puzzle for the eye. It reminds me of the way Stuart Davis would compress space and flatten objects into pure design. There’s a real sense of energy in this little painting, a conversation across time, where one artist inspires another to see and feel in new ways. It’s like they’re bouncing ideas off each other, exploring what painting can be, one gesture at a time.