1936-7 No. 2

The Museum of Modern Art of San Francisco (the USA).

Canvas, oil.

The work is the artist’s transitional stage from figurative painting to full abstraction and represents a large figure on a vertically stretched canvas. The very dark, almost black work creates a gloomy mood. The shapeless figure resembles a man completely wrapped in a cloak – you can identify him only by a white hand, which peeks out from under a strange robe. Despite the fact that the picture seems almost completely black, the artist did not use a drop of black pigment in it. He used a very thick dark purple paint, which makes the black effect even deeper and more viscous, like a bottomless night sky.