Portrait of S.A.I. Grand Duke Gavriil Kostantinovic 1927

This is Tamara de Lempicka's portrait of Grand Duke Gavriil Konstantinovich. Look at how she built up the form with these long strokes, almost like facets of colour, it's so smart. She reduces the world into these elegant, manageable shapes. I'm thinking especially about the surface of the skin. It's rendered with these cool, slightly sickly tones. It's incredibly smooth, so smooth it's almost unsettling, like porcelain. Then you've got the stark geometry of the face, the sharp nose, the angular jawline, all contributing to this feeling of distance. But against that, the softness of the mouth, the almost pleading expression, it’s quite a contrast. The hand holding the sword has the same uncanny polish as the face. There’s something about the hyper-clarity in Lempicka’s work that really gets to me. It reminds me a little of how Alex Katz uses flatness to create a certain kind of emotional atmosphere. I love how she leaves space for ambiguity.