Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1924

This postcard, "Brief aan Philip Zilcken" was made by Lya Berger, and it's awash with handwritten marks in muted tones, almost like a ghostly script fading into the paper. I can imagine her hand moving across the surface, each word a small brushstroke, building up layers of thought and feeling. You can see the postal stamp: Paris, 1943. What was she thinking as she wrote this? Was it a moment of connection, or perhaps a reaching out across distance and time? The texture of the writing is everything – the way the ink bleeds slightly, the pressure of the pen – these physical elements shape our experience of the message and contribute to its emotional weight. Berger’s work is a reminder that artists are always in conversation, borrowing, responding, and pushing back against what came before. Each gesture carries a history, a question, and a possibility. Painting, like writing, is an embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, inviting endless interpretations.