The simple act of reading is depicted by Lasar Segall, blurred and reconstructed through a messy palette of mixed, merging colours. The subject is his first wife, Margarete, who the artist had met in Dresden in the year this work was created. It is not an idealised, intimate depiction and the foreshortened table creates gaps and distances between viewer, artist and subject. Equally, the figure is not interested in our presence as we unexpectedly enter this private, domestic scene - she remains engrossed in the mundane activity of reading. She leans forward, her shoulders hunched, with one arm propped up on the table in a casual position. The edge of the book is pulled up towards her features, suggesting her interest in her reading material, dragging the words closer to her as if to read with further intensity. Dressed in a simple white shirt with her hair pulled back away from her face, her depiction is as humble as the action she undertakes. Despite the large expanse of the tabl...