Portrait of Allan Stein 1906

'Portrait of Allan Stein' by Pablo Picasso is a painting conjured from thin washes of brownish hues. You can almost feel Picasso coaxing the image out of nothing, searching for the form. I wonder what it was like for Picasso to create this work? Maybe he started with those quick white strokes – those lines like a skeleton under the flesh. It’s like he’s mapping out the structure, the underlying geometry, before fleshing it out. Then he builds up the layers, stroke by stroke, until Allan emerges from the surface. And that gaze! His eyes are fixed, focused, but there's a softness too. I get the sense that Picasso saw something beyond just the external likeness; that he saw something of his inner world as well. He’s showing us how every portrait is in some ways a self-portrait. It’s a reminder that painters are in an ongoing conversation, looking at each other, pushing each other forward, using the language of painting to make sense of the world, one brushstroke at a time.