Man's Hat 1935 - 1942

Bessie Forman made this drawing of a top hat, using graphite on paper. I’m thinking about Bessie, who lived so long, and wondering what she was thinking as she put pencil to paper here. I love the delicate pencil strokes, how they build up the form and give it a sheen. The hat almost glows against the paper, a kind of quiet intensity. It’s like she’s trying to capture not just the object, but the feeling of it. It’s this feeling of texture and depth and quietness all at once. I’m thinking of Morandi, another painter who spent their life looking closely at mundane objects. Like he did with his bottles, Bessie shows us that something as simple as a hat can be a whole world, if you really look. It's a reminder that art is about seeing, feeling, and making marks that somehow speak to all of us.