Vrouwenhoofd 1875 - 1934

This is a drawing by Isaac Israels, called Vrouwenhoofd, which means ‘woman’s head’ in Dutch. It’s all done with graphite pencil. I’m imagining Israels in his studio, maybe he’s got a model in the room, maybe he's just riffing from memory. Look at how the strokes give definition to her face. See how the graphite hatches together to give form to the soft mass of the pillow behind the woman’s head. There’s a real energy and aliveness to those marks. Drawing is like thinking sometimes, you start with one thing and it suggests another, and another… This drawing reminds me of other artists who use the human form, like Egon Schiele or Käthe Kollwitz. They were all dealing with the human condition, the way we hold ourselves in the world. Each of these artists feed off each other, like echoes bouncing through the halls of art history. It’s a long conversation they’re having, about life, about the things we see, and how we see them.