Sirene 1947

Enrico Prampolini made 'Sirene' with crayon and pencil. There’s something so raw and immediate in the way Prampolini attacked this portrait. Look at the colours he's chosen – that acid yellow across the forehead and down the nose, bumping up against that intense blue eye. And then that smear of red, like the model’s just eaten something very saucy. It’s all laid down so directly, you can almost feel him wrestling with the paper, trying to capture something fleeting, something that keeps slipping away. The mouth is a fascinating focal point, this messy almost floral arrangement of dark red marks. It’s a moment of pure painterly abandon. The quick, scratchy lines describing the hair feel like he’s trying to catch something wild and untamed. Prampolini and Schiele would have had a lot to talk about! It's this tension between control and chaos that makes the drawing so compelling, and reminds us that art is always a process of discovery, a conversation between the artist and the world.