The two

Two heads are pressed close together in this bust-length double portrait. The nearer figure's face is reduced almost entirely to dark green-black shadow, with only faint warm highlights suggesting brow, nose and jaw. Beside and slightly behind, a smaller fair-haired figure in blue with a pink patch turns partly away, face rendered more softly in pale tones.

The background is built from dragged, scumbled strokes of ochre, cream and rust that expose the canvas weave beneath. Thick, uneven paint and scratched incised lines give the surface a worn, weathered quality, while the almost featureless dark face reads as a mask rather than a likeness. The narrow earth-tone palette, offset by acid yellow hair and cobalt blue, feels brooding and enigmatic.