Helen Malta Boy with Caged Bird Color Pencil Drawing, 1930s round platter with tall lip as noted on the back

as noted on the back of the gray backing card to which it is mounted

and I have great admiration for the creativity of its maker

and its rusty brown color animated with drippy black veins

coffee and tea

With their elegant graphics and terrific color palettes

Helen Malta Boy with Caged Bird Color Pencil Drawing, 1930s round platter with tall lip as noted on the backThis is one of several just in drawings by Helen Wagner Malta (1912 1975), which I am completely taken with gentle and sweet without being saccharine, delicate but decisive, just enough and always subtly surprising. This and the rest from what I understand came from a sketchbook of drawings she did in the 1930s or so, while teaching at the Harlem Art Center and working at the New York branch of the WPA graphics division. Malta's work, which also