Portræt af en sort kvinde (Miarka) 1914

This is Othon Friesz’s charcoal drawing of a Black woman titled 'Portræt af en sort kvinde (Miarka)'. The portrait is a mix of decisive and soft lines. You can almost feel the scratch of the charcoal on the page, the energy of the hand moving quickly to capture a likeness. I wonder, did she sit for him, patiently holding her pose? Or was this drawn from memory, a fleeting impression he wanted to hold onto? Look at the shading around her eyes and mouth – it gives her face a real depth. You get a sense of her presence, her gaze turned slightly away as if lost in thought. It makes me think about how artists are always borrowing and responding to each other. Friesz was part of that early 20th-century moment where artists were really grappling with representation and looking for new ways to see. He was in conversation with his contemporaries like Matisse and Derain. This drawing is part of that whole lineage of mark-making and looking closely at the world.