Fotoalbum bij het afscheid van Eugen Wachenheimer als directeur van het filiaal van de Deutsche Bank in Sofia, 1928 1928

This photo album, made in 1928 for the farewell of a bank director in Sofia, is an anonymous labour of love. Look at the craft of the cover, all those intricate, embossed lines and painted layers, with the faded gold and the central lozenge holding a little emerald green. I wonder who made this album? It seems like they brought so much care to the task. Were they thinking about the passage of time as they constructed it? I bet they chose that cool blue-grey to evoke a sense of calm, of steady banking, and the red and gold to give it a bit of grandeur, a sense of importance. It makes me think about the connection between art and utility and the quiet, everyday beauty that we find when we honor a person with a well-made object. All this makes me consider how, as artists, we keep each other company across time. We leave each other these little clues, these traces of our thinking, and we can continue the conversation.