Anna (Hanka) Zabrowska 1916

Modigliani painted this portrait of Anna (Hanka) Zborowska in oil, but the date is unknown. He uses such a warm palette, and these colours, set against her dark dress, they really vibrate, don’t they? Almost as if the sitter has been caught in a ray of sunshine. The paint is thin, almost translucent in places. Look how the browns and oranges of the background are allowed to peek through the solid black of her dress! And the lines are kind of scratchy and uneven, like a drawing – but they're made with a brush, or maybe the back of one. See where her hands are clasped in her lap? The paint is built up in layers there, but really, it looks like he has scrubbed the canvas with dry pigment, until it’s almost powdery. For me this work is all about that tension between line and form, and how Modigliani uses them both to create a feeling of quiet intensity. I think he captures her interior life somehow. Like his contemporary Chaim Soutine, Modigliani shows us that painting is a conversation with the past.