Man with a Pipe 1911

Max Pechstein made this drawing of a man with a pipe in 1911 with ink on paper. I can see the artist making this, a quick drawing in a flurry of marks. What’s great about drawing, you know, it's kind of like thinking. He’s used confident, gestural strokes to capture the man’s likeness. You can see how the strokes around the eyes are heavier. The marks are so expressive; they give the man a real sense of character. I wonder who he was and what they talked about. What does the pipe mean in this context? It’s a moment of contemplation, a man, a pipe, and an artist capturing the scene. It’s intimate, right? It reminds me of other artists from that period playing with portraiture and mark-making. There's an ongoing conversation between artists, a give-and-take, a real exchange of ideas.