Portret van een vrouw met twee kinderen in Volendamse klederdracht c. 1900 - 1910

G. Hidderley made this small portrait of a woman and two children in Volendam dress, probably in a dark room with a camera, a long time ago. The greyscale is gorgeous. It feels like the process of developing the image has been brought to the fore. The soft focus of the background and the textures, the way the light catches the edge of the table, all speak to the material of the photograph. The small size of the image makes it feel very intimate, like a secret world you can hold in your hand. Look at the woman’s face. It has been caught between sharpness and blur. The artist has captured the moment that the image became visible in the developer tray. This links it to the work of artists like Gerhard Richter, who play with focus, and draw our attention to the surface and materiality of painting. I like to think of the history of art as a conversation across time and space.