Portrait of a Woman is one of the artist’s earliest works, shifting from light used functionally—as in lamps—toward light as a central element of the composition. A paper profile, illuminated from behind, suggests a face—partially depicted and selectively framed. The treatment references early modernist experiments with reduction and collage, with a clear nod to Cubist portraiture. Light, paper, and hardware are incorporated as equal elements within the structure—materials newly combined for visual balance and clarity.

The piece achieves its balance through a series of subtle formal pairings: the paper shour at left is mirrored by a brass faucet on the right; the square frame around the portrait is echoed by a second square form connecting two faucets; and the curved loop of a door hinge at the bottom finds its counterpart in the arc of a lower faucet. These quiet echoes hold the piece in place, through alignment, proportion, and tension.

Though built early on, Portrait of a Woman has remained in the artist’s personal collection. Like most of his work, its composition took shape gradually, through trial, adjustment, and constant visual engagement. 

That quiet, iterative process—led by material placement and the search for compositional balance—offered an early glimpse of a formal clarity that would emerge more fully in his later work.