Head of a Man 

Curator: Let's turn our attention to this arresting portrait. It’s Jules Schmalzigaug's, a study simply called *Head of a Man*. The medium appears to be pencil on paper. What springs to mind for you looking at this, though? Editor: The gravity, certainly the angle from which it's drawn, a gaze almost mournful, or is it world-weariness? What strikes me is the way the artist lets the pencil linger in the shadows under the brow. You can almost feel the rough texture of the paper pulling back against the graphite. Curator: Absolutely. It's almost as if Schmalzigaug captured a private moment, maybe the model at the end of a tiring session. The rough hatch marks… they're not polished but are evocative, full of human fallibility. It brings up questions about artistic labor for me, especially when the model seems so tired. How long did he have to pose like this for Schmalzigaug to achieve such likeness? Editor: Precisely. The visible pencil strokes aren’t hidden – the labour isn't concealed by some illusion. It emphasizes the physicality of drawing. We think of it as merely the base for "greater" art but why, really? Each pencil stroke reveals a negotiation between artist and subject through the simple but complex means of production of a pencil mark. There is power here and also potential exhaustion and class divides in the need to sell likenesses in early 20th-century art economies. Curator: That's a poignant observation. The lines do show a building, shaping – a searching. The weight of the head itself is pronounced as if it requires significant effort just to keep one's gaze pointed downward. You can nearly empathize with the weariness he surely would've felt while posing for Schmalzigaug. Editor: A perfect summary! It moves beyond an exercise to something far more humane when one dwells on the pencil itself. Its capacity, when deployed so expertly to communicate complex sentiments through relatively minimal means is a true reflection on its capabilities. Curator: A tender dance indeed between artist, sitter and a stick of graphite. Thank you!