Artwork Information

The thick impasto of this portrait blurs the contours of the young woman’s face, while successfully capturing the pensive air of one who has been asked to sit for a long period. In 1948, English gallery owner, Lucy Wertheim, gifted 181 works to Auckland, including this painting. Ronald Dunlop founded the Emotionist group, who exhibited at the Hurricane Lamp Gallery in Chelsea, London. In his somewhat vague manifesto, he stressed that ‘Art is the expression of the essence of life.’