Portrait of Mrs William Wickham Hoffman, née Katherine Miller 1932

Philip Alexius de László painted this portrait of Mrs. Hoffman in London, sometime in the early 20th century, using oils. The artist deploys an interesting combination of looseness and tight control. The background is a flurry of strokes, while the face is rendered with careful, focused brushwork. Look closely at the shawl draped across her shoulders. There's a real push-and-pull between thin washes of color and thicker impasto. See how the paint thins out towards the edges, creating a luminous, almost ethereal effect? The brushwork is so fluid, it’s like he's chasing after the light as it dances across the surface of the fabric. It’s a beautiful balancing act between capturing the fleeting moment and freezing it in time. de László's teacher was Bertalan Székely, and the influence is clear, especially when compared to Székely's portrait of Franz Liszt. It makes you think about art as a conversation across time and space, doesn’t it? Each artist responding to, and building upon, the ideas of those who came before, and that's what makes art so endlessly fascinating.