Woman in Belgravia Hotel

In several figural works of the 1960s and beyond, Osborne used architectural space to highlight states of being and relationships between figures. These pictures are among her most accomplished and sensitive observations of the human form against abstract space. They reveal her close scrutiny of modernist styles during the 1960s, including minimalism and color field painting, and integrate the figure seamlessly into rigorously designed, interlocking spaces. Woman in Belgravia Hotel poses a model before Osborne’s open studio window. She wears an outfit composed of flat, unmodulated blocks of color that pick up the rectangular rhythms distributed throughout the view–from the open window itself to rooftops, distant windows, negative space formed by the bright urban opening to the sky, and radiator grill within the room. The woman rests in quiet contemplation, her serene internal state possibly projected in the balance of forms beyond her seat.