Indian and Woman 1910

Max Pechstein daubed this oil onto canvas – it’s called ‘Indian and Woman.’ Those vivid reds and yellows, alongside the greens and blues, really grab you, don't they? I imagine Pechstein in his studio, wrestling with the composition. He’s pushing and pulling, adding layers, scraping back. Look at the sitting figure, and the mirror behind; he's repeated the colour, but the reflection is more tentative, like a ghost. Pechstein, like a lot of artists at the time, was influenced by non-Western cultures. I wonder what he was thinking about when he made this? Was he trying to understand something about himself through the process of painting these figures? I see echoes of Matisse's bold colours and Gauguin's exoticism in here. It’s like they’re all in conversation. I love the woman in the foreground, she's so self-assured as she stares back at us. Painting is about searching, questioning, and letting things emerge, rather than knowing all the answers.