Portrait of a Girl in a Blue Jersey (Carrington)

Gertler’s image of fellow artist Dora Carrington is both a strikingly modern conception, flat and stark, and an homage to the simple, serene portraits of early Renaissance Italy. The comparison is one the artist certainly had in mind. He had recently become interested in painting in tempera, then undergoing a revival in Britain, and this portrait displays the medium’s clarity of color, and clearly defined outlines. Gertler sets off Carrington’s features against a bright background. The entire bottom half of the portrait is the unmodulated blue of her jersey. Though begun in tempera, Gertler’s portrait of Carrington was finished in oils, a more forgiving medium. The switch may have been made from necessity: Gertler often admonished his sitter for her habit of rarely sitting still.