Head of a Woman

Figures were the principal motif in Ortega Muñoz’s work until 1955, after which he increasingly focused on a type of austere landscape that would characterise his work from that date onwards. The early figures are extremely dry in style and although it might be thought that they evoke the life of country people they are in fact devoid of any psychological content; rather they are used as visual elements in a way that locates them within the same context as the still lifes that the artist had produced a few years earlier. The girl depicted here is also to be found in a work of almost academic style entitled The Staircase (1952), which was exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid and was included in the corresponding catalogue (no. 66). According to the artist himself, the present work is a preparatory study for it. While here the figure is only bust-length, in the finished work she is depicted almost to the knees in a pose that imbues her with a sense of dynamism. The face, painted in ochre tones against the background of the brown beams and the dark dress, has a particular glow that is subsequently found in the artist’s landscapes.