BEAUTY – Jaume Plensa (2006)

Part of the Serie Anónimos, this lithograph by Jaume Plensa features the soft, steady gaze of a woman emerging from a veil of ink. The word BEAUTY, printed across her forehead, sits not as a compliment but as a provocation — blurred by vertical streaks that dissolve its clarity. Her headscarf, striped like a flag or shroud, gives the portrait a political and cultural resonance that complicates the word’s presence.

Printed in 2006 by Grifoll (Rubí, Barcelona) on vegetal paper, the piece forms part of a series where Plensa compresses monumentality into fragility. Here, beauty is not ornament or consensus, but a question. Is it still beauty when obscured? When distressed? When inscribed on a body already marked? The result is an image of quiet resistance, at once intimate and urgent.

• Object: Lithograph
• Title: BEAUTY
• Artist / Author: Jaume Plensa
• Date: 2006
• Technique / Printing Method: Offset lithography
• Medium / Materials: Ink on translucent vegetal paper
• Edition: Open edition (Serie Anónimos)
• Signed: No (studio-printed credit verso or on mount)
• Framing: Mounted on neutral archival board (unframed)
• Dimensions: 30 × 22 cm (image), 39 × 28 cm (mounted)
• Condition: Excellent
• Provenance: Darwin Collection