La Paloma

Around 1904 in Barcelona, Nonell painted this young Roma woman he called La Paloma over and over, at least a dozen times in two years. She sits wrapped in burnt orange against a dark green ground, turned away from us, filling nearly the whole canvas. Nonell built her up in thick, broken strokes and made no attempt to prettify poverty. He spent these years painting the city's outsiders, the Roma and the destitute, in the same Barcelona where a young Picasso was then finding his way toward the blue-toned figures of his own early work. Nonell died in 1911, only 38, just as his reputation was catching up with him.