Study for a Portrait 1915

Lyubov Popova’s “Study for a Portrait” is a painting made, we think, sometime in the early 20th century using oils. It's like she's not just painting a person, but also the idea of a person. The colors are muted—greens, yellows, browns, and a few pops of red—laid down in flat planes. It's all about the geometry. Look at how the lines form shapes, not necessarily realistic, but somehow emotionally true. The texture is hard to read in reproduction, but you can see the layering, and it makes you wonder how much she scraped back. There's something satisfying about the way the green is so clearly laid on, not trying to blend, just existing. You know, I’m reminded of some of Leger’s work with its hard edges, but Popova's got this extra layer of something… vulnerable? It’s the ambiguity that really sticks with you. There's no right way to read it, and that's the beauty of it.