Head of a Man in a Fur-Cap 1943 - 1944

Arnold Peter Weisz-Kubínčan made this rapid head portrait with confident strokes of black ink. I can imagine Weisz-Kubínčan holding the pen, letting it dance across the page, building up the form of a face and the suggestion of a fur cap through a network of lines. There's a real energy and immediacy in the application of each mark. It’s like he's trying to capture not just the physical likeness of his sitter, but also something of their inner character. You see the influence of Cubism in the way the features are fragmented and reassembled, suggesting multiple perspectives at once. The composition, the abstract lines around the head – are they a cage? Or do they imply the subject is breaking free from something? Are they a mirror of Weisz-Kubínčan's own state? These decisions make you wonder about the relationship between the artist and his sitter, and the wider context in which this work was made.