Love Flight of a Pink Candy Heart 1930

Florine Stettheimer made this large painting called Love Flight of a Pink Candy Heart at some point in her life. It looks like she built up the surface in layers, almost like washes of color, letting the whole thing glow from underneath. What really grabs me is the yellow. It’s this sunny, almost acidic yellow that dominates the canvas, and Stettheimer uses it to create this dreamlike space where anything can happen. The paint handling is so fluid, so free, that the whole composition feels weightless. You see these figures floating around a tea party or riding a horse, and it's all connected by this strange, energetic mark-making. Take a look at the pink heart, for example. It's not just a flat shape but built with soft, fuzzy edges, giving it this sense of movement, like it's really in flight. Stettheimer was a contemporary of artists like Marcel Duchamp, and you can see some of that playful spirit in her work. It’s like she’s turning the world upside down and inviting us to see things in a new, slightly unhinged way.