Girl with a Cigarette
by ZORN, Anders, Etching and drypoint, 155 x 116 mm
The virtuosity of the etchings of Anders Zorn, Swedish painter, sculptor and engraver with a prodigious international career, was immediately greatly appreciated and in much demand due to the scenographic effects of light and shadow, including spectacular use of light and shade and a dense network of marks that are characteristic of his graphic style, which owes a lot to the methods of James McNeill Whistler. With expert, poetic use of light, the artist has been able to give his own prints a vitality and intensity of emotion that is very different from the conventions in vogue for the stereotypical female figures of his Parisian contemporaries.
Like many etchings by the artist, this is an extraordinary interpretation, in the smaller size of a sheet, of one of his painted portraits (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco).