Girl in Scarf 1916

Eugeniusz Zak made this drawing of a girl in a scarf, and you can see all the decisions he made, right there on the surface! It’s all these little marks together that form the drawing, built up of layers, like trial and error, but also just pure intuition. I can feel his hand moving as I look, and I imagine him thinking, ‘How can I make this mark evoke shadow, volume, and depth?’ Zak, like so many painters, was probably inspired by other painters, and was in dialogue with them. I think, ‘Okay, I’m going to use this colour, this line, this shape,’ and it all accumulates over time, across history. And with each mark, he also creates a space for us to feel something, to imagine something. It is a conversation about what a drawing can be.