Brief aan Willem Bogtman Possibly 1922 - 1927

Curator: What strikes me first about Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst's "Brief aan Willem Bogtman," dating perhaps from 1922 to 1927, is the intimacy of it. A handwritten letter in ink on paper...you can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page. Editor: It's raw, immediate, like we're intruding on a private moment. I am thinking about how the lined paper provides both structure and restriction – the hand fights and resists it, bleeds into it. The labor feels quite intense here as the tool – the pen – inscribes an affective relationship onto material form. Curator: Indeed. Holst, though known for his symbolism, seems to have momentarily discarded the grand gestures in favor of a vulnerable exchange. The letter begins "Amici!" -- to friends. The cost scrawled at the top hints to monetary struggles perhaps. I imagine these were hard times, hard laboring. Editor: Yes, the inscription at the top makes the exchange real! It renders concrete what it cost to produce something like this. Paper, ink, plus the time—all point to Holst's specific economic and material conditions. We need to remember Holst isn’t just some disembodied artistic genius—he's a guy trying to live and survive. Curator: There's a tenderness in those handwritten words. Imagine the effort it took to craft each sentence, each word as an offering. Holst offers friendship in these words—an acknowledgement of shared humanity and struggle. Editor: You feel that acutely in the imperfection and irregularity of the writing. And yet the work itself feels deeply crafted, intentional. The composition of it reminds me how seemingly casual acts can be quite carefully made. Curator: For me it's about that connection. How the simplest of materials can transmit complex emotions across time, bridging gaps between souls. It’s that magic, I think, that makes it a work of art. Editor: Yes, seeing it this way—we appreciate how something mundane and ephemeral becomes valued and historic. The exchange is embedded in labor and materiality.