Roland Hayes 1925

Winold Reiss made this portrait of Roland Hayes with what looks like pastels or crayons. You can see each stroke, each mark that builds up the form, and that's how I think about painting too. It's not just about getting the likeness, it's about the process of putting one color next to another. Notice how the colors aren't blended perfectly, especially around the mouth and eyes. These slight imperfections, these moments of almost-but-not-quite, give the face character, depth, and feeling. The textures, the way the color sits on the paper, it's all right there. It reminds me of other portraitists like Alice Neel, who also let the rawness of the medium speak. It’s like they’re saying, hey, this is paint, this is paper, but it's also a person. That’s the magic.