Portrait of a girl in white

Early in the twentieth century, Carlos Baca-Flor defined his vocation as a portraitist through pieces such as this one, which denote a free brushwork and a particular interest in the effects of light. These works stand apart from the conventional rigidity that characterized his commissioned portraits. This image of an infant girl seems to have been done as a study, as it remained in the hands of the artist, who here tested a harmony of grays with the effects of light on the white smock, in addition to making it an exercise in the psychological grasp of the subject.