Man spreekt een ober aan before 1948

Hans Borrebach made this drawing of a patron addressing a waiter with ink on paper, at some point in his life. The bold strokes of ink, especially in the waiter’s uniform, give the piece a graphic, almost poster-like quality. It’s immediate, confident, but also leaves room for our imagination to fill in the details. I'm drawn to the way Borrebach uses these darks and lights to suggest form and depth. It's like he’s saying, “Here’s the basic structure, now you do some of the work too." The stack of plates the waiter is holding is rendered so simply, almost abstractly, just a series of lines and curves. Yet, it totally reads as a precarious tower of crockery, doesn't it? It reminds me of some of Philip Guston's later, more cartoonish paintings, where he used a similar shorthand to depict everyday objects. It feels like Borrebach is winking at us, inviting us to play along, to see the world with a bit of humor and lightness. Ultimately, art is about an exchange of ideas and perspectives, a conversation that continues across generations.