Boy's Coat c. 1937

Marie Mitchell made this Boy's Coat, and it looks like she used watercolor or maybe gouache to make this flat but lovely image. It’s quite simple, just a pale green coat outlined with blue floral embroidery. I can imagine her making this, trying to get the folds of the sleeves just right, thinking maybe about a child in her life. Or, maybe remembering her own childhood, the awkwardness of coats and special occasions. I am struck by the symmetry of it, the attempt to render a real object into a kind of iconic representation. The evenness of the green wash is so soothing and then that pop of darker blue embroidery thread. I love how the little leaves twist and turn up the front of the coat and around the cuffs. There is something very charming in the simplicity and tenderness of this rendering, a desire to preserve something, even though it is just an image.