Untitled Possibly 1946

This untitled painting was made by Judith Rothschild with mixed media on masonite. There's something really satisfying about the way Rothschild balances the flat, graphic shapes with the more nuanced, almost architectural elements. The palette is muted, mostly greys and browns, but then bam! A pop of pink or a flash of yellow throws your eye for a loop, demanding you look closer. Check out how she's built up the surface, layering color on color so that it's really singing. It's like she's thinking through the paint itself, letting the colors and shapes bump up against each other until they find their place. I'm drawn to those little green dashes on the left. They feel almost like an afterthought, but they bring such a playful, human quality to the whole thing. You can see how she's feeling her way through, trusting her intuition. It reminds me a bit of some of Stuart Davis's more abstract work, where the painting becomes a kind of puzzle. It's not about representing something real, but about creating its own kind of visual reality.