Spanning three metres in width, Belle de Jour is a large-scale early work by German artist Sophie Von Hellermann. Included in her first solo exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in 2001, and subsequently shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the work is titled after Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film starring Catherine Deneuve. With their deliberately romantic, anecdotal and pastel-washed appearance, Von Hellermann’s canvases are conceived in opposition to the grandiloquence, masculine bravado and gravitas that dominated German painting during the post-War period. Working in fast, wet-on-wet brushstrokes on unprimed cotton, her fluid picture planes offer analogies for the ways in which identities slip and dissolve under the pressure of aspirational media imagery. The present work takes its place within Von Hellermann’s early cast of celebrity subjects; more recent canvases have confronted broader issues including global politics, religion and science. Based in London, where she completed her MFA at the Royal College of Art, the artist has staged exhibitions at institutions including the Chisenhale Gallery, the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium and the Kunstverein Hannover.