Standing Female Nude holding a White Drape

Considered as Ireland's first and best cubist painter, Mainie Jellett saw her own development as a quest, divided into 'revolutions'. She studied under three major 20th Century artists: Walter Sickert, André Lhote and Albert Gleizes. The present work belongs to the transitional period when she was moving from a traditional rendering of subject matter to cubism and abstraction; the woman's body is conceived in terms of mass and volume whilst not losing its human, physical appeal.