Female Head, Looking Up, 1923

Expressive female portraits became a hallmark of Helene Funke’s (1869–1857) oeuvre. Following her training at the Munich Ladies’ Academy, she moved into an apartment in Paris together with her fellow painter Martha Hofrichter (1872–1960). At the renowned art salon of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), she found herself at the heart of the French avant-garde, and developed her own expressive style of painting. From 1913, she lived in Vienna, where she successfully exhibited her works, for instance at the Vienna Secession. Funke painted worldly, confident women in innovative arrangements, often naked or within settings of explosive colors. The 1923 work Female Head, Looking Up is part of an extensive series of red chalk drawings, which she called Female Head or Cherub. They are all portrait depictions of a woman with flowing curls and a bare chest. She is looking up with an alert expression and slightly parted lips, and seems to be discerning something in the distance.

RR, 2023