Post-Christmas plans… This striking painting is by the 20th-century American artist Margo Hoff, who made work “that found magic in the less dramatic, more prosaic elements of reality”, according to the Art Institute of Chicago, where the artwork hangs. Daniel Catton Rich, the Institute’s director from 1938 to 1958, wrote of Hoff’s distinct style, “She has an unhackneyed feeling for design, a strange and effective colour sense, and a most sensitive control… She has added an intangible feeling of mystery and suspense to her painting.” In this instance, that tension is exacerbated by the work’s title, Murder Mystery—which we hope merely refers to what the figure is reading.
