Hotel Plaza from Central Park 1914

Rachael Robinson Elmer made this delicate view of the Plaza Hotel from Central Park at an unknown date, with what looks like watercolor or gouache on paper. I love how she’s mixed greens, blues and browns to suggest the shifting light on the water, those flat, opaque marks that evoke the feeling of reflections without getting too fussy. The swans in the foreground are so great! Elmer's got this way of simplifying their forms, almost like paper cut-outs, that gives the piece a really charming, naive quality. And the way the Plaza Hotel rises up in the background, a hazy gray-pink mirage, makes you feel like you're in a dream. It's funny how the city, which is usually all about hustle and bustle, becomes this peaceful, contemplative space through her eyes. Elmer's work reminds me a little of some of the early 20th-century American Modernists like Milton Avery, who were also interested in finding a balance between representation and abstraction. But Elmer has a sweetness that's all her own.