Daydreams is a painting I know little about, except for the approximate date it was painted, the early sixties, and the title. I first saw it as a very poor quality, small colour photograph Christine included towards the back of one of her early portfolio books. Recently, I came across a very good Kodachrome transparency that, despite being some sixty years old, showed the painting with excellent color and fidelity, reproduced here.

I think the painting is an experiment, a test of a new direction or possible approach to take, as she was becoming frustrated by the limited number of portrait commissions she was able to get. This idea is further reinforced by her completely novel signature, “C. Aldridge Benson”. She often felt stymied by the very sexist attitudes to female painters of the mostly male juries of exhibitions at this time. She recounted that their typical attitude was that “it was a good hobby for the missus but nobody could expect a woman to have a career as a professional painter: it just wasn’t done.” Here, Christine is using her middle name to give a masculine ring to her signature, despite the fact that she was never very fond of it.

I think the day dream in the image is about how things could look if the objects and people in reality were solid black like a shadow, but their shadows were in turn full colour, reflecting their dreams.