Meisje met hond op een straathoek 1915

This delicate drawing by Nelly Spoor shows us a group of children in a street scene and looks like it was likely made with ink on paper. I’m thinking about her hand moving across the page, carefully plotting out the composition; first, I imagine, a light sketch, then going back over it with definitive lines. What was Nelly thinking as she decided where to place each child, each brick? She was constructing a world, a whole network of characters, their relationships, their setting. Look at the thickness of the lines; they give depth and weight to the figures, anchoring them in place. It reminds me of some of Paula Modersohn-Becker's drawings. There is an exchange of ideas going on between her and Nelly Spoor. Painters are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring each other across time. With work like this, the ambiguity it holds embraces the way we can find multiple meanings, not fixed readings.