Portait of John Polemis 1924

Paul Mathiopoulos made this portrait of John Polemis with chalk, sometime around 1924. The brown chalk gives the piece a lovely warm tone, a harmony that feels so sophisticated. The marks are interesting, the chalk is blended and smudged in places, but in others, like the details of the face, there are crisp lines. Look closely, you can see how the artist built up the form with layers of hatching, creating a real sense of depth and volume. The highlights on the face and hair seem to almost glow against the softer shadows. It’s the kind of drawing that makes you appreciate the artist's hand, the way they’ve worked and reworked the surface to capture the essence of their subject. There's a touch of Whistler here, or maybe even a Degas portrait—it's like seeing echoes of other artists who also understood the power of suggestion, of letting the medium speak as much as the subject.