Drawing

This is a charcoal drawing, and the catalogue gives it no title beyond that single word. Derain was one of the strong draughtsmen of his generation, a painter who thought a motif through with charcoal or chalk alongside his work in colour. The medium suited that habit. Charcoal is fast and forgiving, easily smudged into shadow with a thumb and just as easily lifted off again, so a drawing can be pushed and corrected while the artist looks. Sheets like this were usually made for the painter himself rather than for sale, which is why so many of them carry no subject and no date. This one is worked in charcoal on a sheet a little under 40 centimetres tall.