Head of a Woman

Elie Nadelman

c. 1920–22

A pared-down study of a woman’s head rendered in ink and watercolor on paper, in which Nadelman reduces features to elegant, masklike curves as if sketching a sculpture.

You notice a serene, almost impassive face built from a few sure contour lines and soft blue‑gray washes—narrow, closed eyes, a small pursed mouth, and a bold crescent of tone at the forehead that suggests a hat or coiffure.

This work shows Nadelman’s signature fusion of classical calm and modern simplification—translating three-dimensional sculpture into essential line and tone—and helped advance an American modernism that favored stylized, folk‑inflected forms over detailed realism.

Palette

Art Terms

Drawing Ink Watercolor Portrait Figurative Modern art Classicism

Exhibitions

Elie Nadelman

1948

American Drawings and Watercolors: A Selection from the Collection

1969

The Nude: Thirty 20th-Century Drawings

1970

European Drawings from the Collection

1972