Four Sad Boys - Robert Lohman, c. 1960s

Robert Lohman’s Four Sad Boys presents the figure as a stack of blue, mask-like presences, each one partially formed through watercolor bloom, ink line, and dark facial notation. The work is vertically arranged, with the heads rising one above another in a narrow column. This format gives the image a totemic quality, as if the boys are not separate portraits in a conventional sense, but related states of feeling placed along the same vertical axis.

The most legible face occupies the lower half of the sheet. It is the largest and most fully described, with a lowered gaze, darkened eye, long nose, and small compressed mouth. The face turns slightly to the left, giving it a withdrawn, inward cast. Above it, two smaller heads appear in blue: one facing outward with heavy eyes and a tight mouth, the other positioned higher and farther back, darker and more shadowed. A fourth presence can be read in the broad blue form at left, where marks suggest another body or head-like figure folded into the group. Lohman does not define all four equally; instead, he lets some remain more ghostlike than others.

The sadness in the work comes not from theatrical expression, but from the economy of the features. The eyes are dark, weighted, and minimally drawn. The mouths are small and unsmiling. The heads press close together, yet they do not appear comforted by that closeness. Rather than staging a clear scene of grief, Lohman gives us a vertical gathering of faces that feel isolated even in proximity. Their shared blue color connects them, while their differing scale and direction keep each one separate.

Blue dominates the entire work, ranging from pale aqueous wash to deeper cobalt. This narrow palette gives the image a cool emotional register and allows the black marks to become especially forceful. The black pigment blooms into the paper around the eyes, mouths, and hair-like passages, creating soft-edged stains rather than hard graphic outlines. These marks feel crucial. They give each face its point of focus and prevent the watercolor from drifting into pure atmosphere.

The handling of the medium is direct and expressive. Lohman allows the blue wash to pool and spread, especially around the heads, so that the figures seem to be made from both drawing and stain. Thin ink lines trace shoulders, collars, and partial contours, but the bodies remain barely present. This choice keeps the attention on the faces. The boys are not described through clothing, setting, or narrative detail. They are reduced to heads, glances, and the fragile edges of identity.

The vertical stacking also creates an unusual sense of relation. The lower face is the largest and most grounded, while the heads above it appear to hover like thoughts, memories, or alternate versions of the same figure. The title suggests four boys, but the image also permits a more ambiguous reading: four aspects of boyhood, four states of melancholy, or a single emotional subject multiplied across the page. Lohman’s refusal to fully separate them is part of the work’s strength.

There is a spare theatricality in the image as well. The faces resemble masks, but they are not decorative masks. They have the bluntness of quickly seen human feeling. The blank paper surrounding them is important because it leaves them exposed. Without a detailed setting, the figures appear suspended, almost stranded in the white of the sheet. The emptiness gives the work room to feel quiet and severe.

As a whole, Four Sad Boys is a haunting figural watercolor. It is not polished portraiture, nor is it purely abstract. It sits between the two, using the simplest signs of face and posture to create a small chorus of blue figures. Lohman’s strongest choice is restraint: he does not over-explain the boys, and he does not sentimentalize their sadness. He gives them just enough form to be recognized, and just enough distance to remain unresolved.