Studio of the head

This studio is referred to the Berlin period of A. Arkhipenko. In addition to the traditional pencil, the artist used transparent watercolor and bleach in  work. The studio of the head can be considered as one of the preparatory drawings for future sculptural works. In particular, the image is reminiscent of the head of a woman, made in 1926 in several versions under the name "Past or Silver Mask". On the other hand, because of its plot character, the work makes a more complex impression, perhaps, an outline of a future painting or a sketch of nature: in the background we see two mysterious talking male figures. Thanks to the compositional construction of the work, it seems that these men appeared only in the imagination of the depicted woman.

Maria Cymbalista 
Head of Prints and Drawings department
From the collection of Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.