BARBARA ROMAIN

An observed interior, and one of the few paintings in the archive built entirely from looking. A bedsit is a single rented room, a British term — and this is a British room, down to the framed portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on the wall. Handled naturalistically, with none of the flattening or overwriting that comes later. It sits with her early figurative work rather than with the text paintings or the visual-music canvases.