Shirley Jaffe (1923-2016) Untitled, c. 1950's

Shirley Jaffe Untitled (c.1950’s) is from her Paris period when she was moving from figuration to lyrical abstraction. The composition is a cascade of gestural brushstrokes — reds, greens, yellows and blues dancing across the paper in a way that feels both spontaneous and deliberate. Through these expressive marks she captures the post war energy of the École de Paris while keeping her own rhythm and harmony.

Mixed media on paper the work shows Jaffe’s instinctive balance between color and line. The textured surface where transparent washes meet dense pigment is musical and would later become a hallmark of her geometric abstraction. Here we see the painter searching for structure within movement — a moment of transformation frozen in light and pigment.

This early work shows Jaffe’s sensitivity to emotion and atmosphere, qualities that would become the hallmark of her mature work. It’s a rare document of her evolution — a bridge between the intuitive language of gestural abstraction and the visual architecture of her later style.