Study for ‘L’Armoire à Glace’ c. 1922

Curator: Walter Sickert, born in 1860, conjures a scene with pen on paper, a study, he called it, "L'Armoire à Glace"—or "The Wardrobe with a Mirror." Editor: There's a certain melancholy to it, wouldn't you say? A solitude almost tangible in those scratchy lines. Curator: Well, Sickert was fascinated by the everyday, the frankly rather bleak corners of urban life, often capturing domestic interiors. The visible process becomes part of the subject. Editor: Yes, the materiality of the pen strokes is so clear, as if the scene is being assembled before our very eyes, exposing the social constructs of domesticity even in its rawest form. Curator: It's almost as if the image itself is a reflection, a fleeting glimpse caught in that very mirror. Editor: So, in viewing this, we're confronting not just an image, but the labor and the very act of seeing itself. Intriguing.