Golda Meir, Prime Minister 1973

This is Oskar Kokoschka’s portrait of Golda Meir, Prime Minister, and it's all about the raw energy of the line. You can see the pressure he put into each stroke, almost like he's sculpting with the graphite. It feels like he’s trying to capture not just what she looked like, but also something about her presence. Look at how the lines around her eyes and mouth aren't just wrinkles, they're like the map of a life lived with intensity. The shading around her neck, built up with these almost frantic marks, gives her a weightiness, a groundedness. There's an honesty here, a lack of flattery, that’s so compelling. It reminds me a bit of some of the portraits by Alice Neel, that same unflinching gaze, that willingness to show the person as they are, not as we might wish them to be. It’s a reminder that art is often more about asking questions than providing answers.