Portrait of Sculptor Stefan Zbigniewicz 1930

This is Olga Boznanska's “Portrait of Sculptor Stefan Zbigniewicz.” The painting feels like it has emerged from a hazy dream. Close up, you can see how it's built from loose, painterly marks, mostly in this earthy palette of browns, greens, and muted flesh tones. I really get a sense of Boznanska's process—the shifting, the searching. I imagine her, brush in hand, squinting at her subject, trying to capture something essential. Maybe she steps back, assesses, then moves in again, adding another layer of paint, another stroke of feeling. Look at the way she’s rendered the sculptor's face, all those subtle modulations of color. It reminds me of Whistler's portraits or even some of the early modernists like Bonnard. You can feel how artists look at each other and cross-pollinate ideas across time, pushing each other to see and feel in new ways. It's all this conversation, this exchange, that makes painting so alive.