Anna 1927

Prudence Heward painted this portrait, Anna, with oil on canvas at an unknown date, and it really feels like a painting about process, about moving paint around. The colours are muted, but somehow still sing. Look at the way the white of the snow is pulled across her shirt, but as a pale, almost sickly green. Or the way the red vest pops against the cool ground of the snow and sky. I love how the artist isn’t afraid to let the paint be itself. Take the branches behind the figure. They’re not trying to trick you into thinking they’re real, they are obviously painted, with these deliberate dark outlines and flat planes of colour. Heward allows us to see the physical stuff of the painting, to witness the choices she made in its creation. The way she simplifies the forms reminds me of Cezanne, but with an added emotional punch. It’s about feeling, not just seeing.