Head of an English Girl 1961

Larry Rivers made this print of an English girl’s head sometime around 1961, I’m guessing with lithographic crayon or something similar. Look at those dark, smudgy marks, slashing and building to form this striking portrait! I can just imagine Rivers, leaning in close, charcoal in hand, circling and scribbling, trying to capture something fleeting. What was he trying to seize? A likeness? A mood? A sense of identity? Look at how the dark lines around her head almost threaten to swallow her whole. Maybe he was after the feeling of being young and on the verge. The texture is so immediate, so raw. Rivers had a background in music. Maybe he saw the girl’s face as a kind of melody, a series of notes to be transcribed onto the page. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's work, and of course, all those great gestural abstractionists of the time. It's all about the hand, the body, the gut. Rivers makes me think of the ongoing conversation between artists across time, each one riffing off the other.