Nude 1954

Alfred Krupa made this Nude with what looks like graphite or pencil on paper. It’s this kind of work that makes me think about the artist's presence. I can imagine him hunched over the paper, squinting, his hand moving back and forth trying to capture the way the light falls on the model’s form. You can feel the pressure of the pencil in the darker lines, and see where he’s gone back over the same area, building up the tone. There’s a real sense of immediacy, like he’s trying to get something down quickly before it disappears. I love the way he's handled the hair, just a mass of scribbled lines that somehow suggest both volume and texture. It reminds me of drawings by other figurative artists. We are all in conversation with each other; with art history. I wonder what artists inspired him?