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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse for her assistance in cataloguing this work.
Woman with Black Hair is one of the most important works of Schjerfbeck’s mature style of the 1930s, a period which Gotthard Johansson refers to as ’the culmination of her life’s work… Even though colour plays an important role in the later production of the artist, line has not lost its importance... the line has simplified and... become an independent artistic and soulful expression’ (G. Johansson, Helene Schjerfbecks Konst, Stockholm, 1940, pp. 37 & 47). Johansson further writes, ’…the soulful expression of the portrayal in the late works depends as much on the linear curvature as on the study of physiognomy. How does the strict play of rising and falling curves not bestow an air of a suffering tragic mask on the pale face of Woman with Black Hair - with its heavy, black crown of hair, protruding eyes and tense neckmuscles! The human face is, in Helene Schjerfbeck’s later paintings, rendered in the music of lines, which is as beautiful as it is expressive’ (ibid., p. 48).
Schjerfbeck had studied works by Georges Rouault reproduced in albums she had had sent to her in 1925 and 1931 (H. Ahtela, Helene Schjerfbeck, 1953, pp. 214 & 252). She particularly identified with Rouault’s characteristic use of strong line, which finds its echo in the curvature of the lines in Woman with Black Hair. However, the way Schjerfbeck composes her symphony of colour and line is completely her own. As Schjerfbeck wrote to her friend and biographer Einar Reuter (alias H. Ahtela), ’With all the foreign impressions it is still I who create the work’ (exh. cat., Helene Schjerfbeck, 150 years, Finnish National Gallery Ateneum, 2012, p. 58).
Einar Reuter notes in his biography of Schjerfbeck that a certain monumentality, which was recognizable already in Schjerfbeck’s early works, becomes ever more pronounced towards the end of the 1920s. ’Characteristically she uses more and more often black, the definitive end of the palette... Among the paintings which have been worked with this new approach are ’Woman with Black Hair'... and ’Alarm’ (H. Ahtela, p. 344).
Woman with Black Hair was included in Schjerfbeck’s first solo exhibition in Stockholm in 1937, arranged by Gösta Stenman, her dealer, patron and friend since 1913. This exhibiton was a revelation to the art public in Stockholm and a complete breakthrough for the modernist Schjerfbeck, then 75 years old. The art critic Gotthard Johnsson wrote in Dagens Nyheter, ’One stands here before great art, here is a holy room... Many of the best pieces have been painted in the last few years and the majority has been painted during the last ten years... Her position in contemporary painting is unusual. Helene Schjerfbeck resembles many and no one’ (G. Johansson, op. cit., p. 8).
Undeniably Schjerfbeck’s dramatic rendering peaks in her work around 1935, as seen in the forceful line and the bewildered gaze, highlighted with brushstrokes of plain colour fields.
Woman with Black Hair is one of the most important works of Schjerfbeck’s mature style of the 1930s, a period which Gotthard Johansson refers to as ’the culmination of her life’s work… Even though colour plays an important role in the later production of the artist, line has not lost its importance... the line has simplified and... become an independent artistic and soulful expression’ (G. Johansson, Helene Schjerfbecks Konst, Stockholm, 1940, pp. 37 & 47). Johansson further writes, ’…the soulful expression of the portrayal in the late works depends as much on the linear curvature as on the study of physiognomy. How does the strict play of rising and falling curves not bestow an air of a suffering tragic mask on the pale face of Woman with Black Hair - with its heavy, black crown of hair, protruding eyes and tense neckmuscles! The human face is, in Helene Schjerfbeck’s later paintings, rendered in the music of lines, which is as beautiful as it is expressive’ (ibid., p. 48).
Schjerfbeck had studied works by Georges Rouault reproduced in albums she had had sent to her in 1925 and 1931 (H. Ahtela, Helene Schjerfbeck, 1953, pp. 214 & 252). She particularly identified with Rouault’s characteristic use of strong line, which finds its echo in the curvature of the lines in Woman with Black Hair. However, the way Schjerfbeck composes her symphony of colour and line is completely her own. As Schjerfbeck wrote to her friend and biographer Einar Reuter (alias H. Ahtela), ’With all the foreign impressions it is still I who create the work’ (exh. cat., Helene Schjerfbeck, 150 years, Finnish National Gallery Ateneum, 2012, p. 58).
Einar Reuter notes in his biography of Schjerfbeck that a certain monumentality, which was recognizable already in Schjerfbeck’s early works, becomes ever more pronounced towards the end of the 1920s. ’Characteristically she uses more and more often black, the definitive end of the palette... Among the paintings which have been worked with this new approach are ’Woman with Black Hair'... and ’Alarm’ (H. Ahtela, p. 344).
Woman with Black Hair was included in Schjerfbeck’s first solo exhibition in Stockholm in 1937, arranged by Gösta Stenman, her dealer, patron and friend since 1913. This exhibiton was a revelation to the art public in Stockholm and a complete breakthrough for the modernist Schjerfbeck, then 75 years old. The art critic Gotthard Johnsson wrote in Dagens Nyheter, ’One stands here before great art, here is a holy room... Many of the best pieces have been painted in the last few years and the majority has been painted during the last ten years... Her position in contemporary painting is unusual. Helene Schjerfbeck resembles many and no one’ (G. Johansson, op. cit., p. 8).
Undeniably Schjerfbeck’s dramatic rendering peaks in her work around 1935, as seen in the forceful line and the bewildered gaze, highlighted with brushstrokes of plain colour fields.