Young Woman at a Desk – Fritz Glarner (1920s or 1930s)
Charcoal on cream laid paper
This expressive charcoal sketch depicts a young woman, perhaps a fellow art student, leaning pensively on a desk or table, her chin resting in one hand as she gazes outward with quiet introspection. The figure is drawn with swift, confident strokes that define the contours of her posture and clothing, while leaving the background and limbs loosely suggested, creating a sense of immediacy and spontaneity.
The interplay of shaded planes and open space emphasizes the psychological presence of the sitter over narrative detail. Her cropped dark bob, modest dress, and relaxed stance evoke a modern sensibility—perhaps echoing the spirit of the early 20th Century European New Woman. The composition is both observational and stylistically advanced, suggesting it may have been executed during Glarner’s academic years in Naples or early Parisian period, before his move into abstract geometries.
This drawing, with its tonal richness and structural clarity, offers rare insight into Glarner’s early sensitivity to the human form—before his later allegiance to non-objective art. Light wear and minor folds are visible at the edges, consistent with its original purpose as a working study or atelier exercise.
Dimensions: 34 x 47 cm
July 20, 1899, Zurich – September 18, 1972, Locarno
Fritz Glarner was a Swiss-born American artist best known as a pioneer of geometric abstraction and a key figure in the Concrete Art and Neo-Plasticist movements. Born in Zurich, Glarner spent much of his youth in Italy and France, where he received classical artistic training at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. His early career included figurative and representational work, as represented in our Village Antiques collection of his early drawings from the artist’s estate.
In 1923, Glarner moved to Paris, where he encountered the European avant-garde and developed close ties with artists such as Piet Mondrian. He became part of the Abstraction-Création group and began evolving toward a language of pure geometric forms and carefully balanced compositions. After relocating to New York in 1936, Glarner became a prominent member of the American Abstract Artists group and developed what he termed “Relational Painting”—a system of dynamic interplay between color, form, and spatial tension, expanding on Mondrian’s grid structure.
Though best known for his abstract compositions, early works reveal the foundations of his visual sensibility: clarity of line, structural focus, and a deep sensitivity to form. Glarner’s paintings are held in major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Kunsthaus Zürich. He also produced paintings for vast interior spaces such as the Dag Hammmarskjold Library at the United Nations and the lobby of the Time-Life building in New York.He spent his final years in Switzerland, where he died in Locarno in 1972.
