Woman in Black, Saturday Evening Post story illustration 1947

Edwin Georgi made this illustration, Woman in Black, for the Saturday Evening Post. It’s hard to say exactly when, but let’s focus on how the process of making it is so clear. Look closely, and you can see how Georgi combined delicate washes of colour with a more assertive, almost scratchy style of line work. Take the throw over the chair in the lower right for example, it’s a mass of frenetic scribbles, but it works. The emotional effect of these visible layers is that of something hidden, a little anxiety, like the woman herself is unsure of what’s going on. In this way, the painting performs the ambiguity it also represents, it's open but uncertain. You can see this quality of unknowability in the work of someone like Marlene Dumas, who also understands the power of a face in shadow.