Woman with hat 1943

Picasso made this ink drawing, Woman with Hat, in 1943, and you can see how he's really working out the image, finding the face through line. The right side of the face is almost blank, compared to the left, which is worked up with layers of ink and wash. It's interesting how he's using the bare page to suggest a kind of emptiness. I’m drawn to the way that one side of the face is dark and worked, while the other is light and airy. It's like he’s showing us the figure from two different angles at once. Looking at the drawing as a whole, I’m reminded of Matisse, maybe one of his portraits from the 30’s – but of course Picasso takes it to a whole other level of distortion. Ultimately, the image exists in the tension between representation and abstraction, between the seen and the unseen.